LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

ChTlp.. Copyright No 

Shelfc/f_5=>_:& 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



Freedom and Slavery 



BY 



WILLIAM KITTLE 

1/ 



MADISON, WIS. 

State Journal Printing Co. 

1900 



SdCJND COPY, 



TWO COPlhlS HEUE1VEJ, 

Library of C6Egm% 
Office of the 

APR 3 1900 

KegleUr «f Cop$rlffftfft 

a. ^23 / 

Q^l^iyi t 6 J, /fern 






61434 

Copyright. 1900, 

BY 

WILLIAM KITTLE. 



CONTENTS. 



I. Two Voyages 

IT. The Royal African Companj 

III. The Middle Passage 

IV. Colonial Slavery 
V. Opinions of the Fathers 

VI. State Laws 

VII. The Ordinance of 17S7 

VIII. The Convention ofi;S7 

IX. Decline of Anti-slavery Sentiment 

X. The Missouri Compromise . 

XI. The Balance of Power . 

XII.. Nullification 

XIII. Old Nat's War . 

XIV. The Abo.itionists 
XV. The Liberty Party 

XYI. The Annexation of Texas 

XVII. The Campaign and Election of 1S44 

XVIII. The War with Mexico . 

XIX. The Wilmot Proviso -. 

XX. The Campaign and Election of 184S 

XXI. Political Excitement during 1849 

XXII. The Compromise of 1S50 

XXIII. Cotton is King . 

- XXIV. Plantation Life . 

XXV. The Slave Trade . 

XXVI. ErLct of the Fugitive Slave Law 

XXVII. The Underground Railroad . 

XXVIII. Uncle Tom's Cabin 

XXIX. The Campaign and Election of 185 

XXX. The Kansas-Nebraska Law . 

XXXI. Border Warfare in Kansas 



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CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. 

XXXII. The Ostend Manifesto 

XXXIII. The Rise of the Republican Party 

XXXIV. The Campaign and Election of 1856 
XXXV. The Attack on Sumner 

XXXVI. The Dred Scott Decision . 

XXXVII. The Lincoln and Douglas Debate 

XXXVIII. John Brown's Raid . 

XXXIX. The Campaign and Election of 1S60 

XL. Secession .... 

XLI. The Confederate States of America 

XLII. The Peace Congress 

XLIII. Decision at the South . . 

XLIV. Division at the North 

XLV. Lincoln's Journey to Washington 

XLVI. Lincoln's Inauguration 

XL VI I. The North and South Compared 

XLVIII. Fort Sumter .... 

XLIX. Opening of the War . 

L. "A Vision of the War" 

LI. The Area of the War 

LI I. The Union and Confederate Armies 

LIII Battles and Loss of Life 

LIV. Cost of the War 

LV. The Freedom of the Slaves 

LVI. The Navy of the United States . 

LVII. England and the Civil War 

LVIII. The South in 1865 . 

LIX. The Fall of Richmond 

LX. Lincoln in Richmond . 

LXI. Lee's "Surrender . . . 

LXII. Assassination of Lincoln 

LXI 1 1. The Grand Review . 

LX1V. Two Forces .... 



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FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 



I. TWO VOYAGES. 

In the early years of the seventeenth century took 
place two important voyages from England to America. 
One of the vessels was named the Treasurer and the 
other the Mayflower. A period of only sixteen months 
separated their arrival in America. One of these brought 
slaves and the other the Pilgrim fathers into what was 
long afterward the United States. One was loaded 
with black men, ignorant, savage, manacled, scourged 
bv the lash and brutalized by former slavery; the other 
brought men and women deeply religious, some of them 
cultured and all sternly devoted to what they thought 
was just and right. 

In April, 1618, the Treasurer, commanded by Captain 
Daniel Elfrith, left England and arrived in Virginia late 
in the summer of the same year. Captain Elfrith had 
from the Duke of Savoy a commission empowering him 
to seize the property of Spaniards. This vessel was 
little better than a pirate, as England was then at peace 
with Spain. Gov. Argall, of Virginia, aided in refitting 
the vessel and supplied her with the most desperate men 
he could rind. Captain Elfrith then left Virginia for the 
Barbadoes, where he remained six weeks in the winter 
of 1618-19. In the spring of 1619 he set out on a rov- 
ing voyage, no record of which has been kept: but in 
September, 1619, the Treasurer in consort with the 



6 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

"man-of-war of Flushing" returned to Jamestown, Va., 
with a cargo of negroes, grain, wax, and tallow. This 
man-of-war was to protect the Treasurer, and its cap- 
tain, John Powell, held from the Duke of Savoy a com- 
mission which empowered him to plunder the Spaniards. 
One or both of these vessels landed twenty negroes at 
Jamestown. Thus slavery began in the colonies. 

The Mayflower left Plymouth, England, September 
16, 1620. A steady wind bore the vessel out to mid- 
ocean, where a succession of terrible storms compelled 
the ship to " lie to " for several days. One of the main 
beams was broken by the force of the great waves. 
There on an open sea, a thousand miles from either shore, 
at the mercy of wind and wave and storm, waited and 
watched and prayed one hundred men, women and 
children. These were the Puritans coming across a 
great ocean and to a new world for conscience's sake. 
On December 21, 1620, they landed at Plymouth, Mass. 
That was the birthday of New England; and the rock 
on which they landed and which is still pointed out to 
travelers will not be for gotten as lomj as the sea shall 
continue to wash it. 

What had these two voyages to do with each other? 
Everything. From them came two great movements 
hostile to each other and extending over two and a half 
centuries of our history. The Treasurer began the 
course of slavery; the Mayflower, that of freedom. 
From the introduction of slavery in 1619 until its aboli- 
tion in 1865, there was not an hour when these hostile 
forces did not gather strength or meet in open conflict. 
It was in truth an " irrepressible conflict."' For the first 
century and a half both sides gathered strength for the 
contest. During that period slavery was firmly estab- 



THE ROYAL AFRICAN COMPANY. 7 

lished in every colony south of Mason and Dixon's line 
and was lawful in every other colony north of that line. 
But in the northern colonies, the force of public opinion 
and the influence of free institutions and free labor were 
strongly in the direction of freedom for all classes. Dur- 
ing the next century, the hostility of these two move- 
ments was clearly recognized. From the Revolution to 
the Civil War, the South with its millions of slaves was, 
on this question, opposed to the North, with its millions 
of free laborers. But the Civil War closed this long 
conflict. By its thousand battles, its four years of great 
endeavor, its billions of debt and its millions of armed 
men, two hundred and forty-six years of shameful his- 
tory were ended and four million slaves were set free. 

II. THE ROYAL AFRICAN COMPANY. 

Fifty-seven years before the voyage of the Treasurer, 
John Hawkins, commanding three small vessels, the 
Soloman, the Swallow, and the Jonas, sailed from 
England in October, 1562. He went by way of the 
Canary Islands to Sierra Leone, collected three hundred 
negroes, crossed westward to San Domingo, sold them 
at an enormous profit and returned to England. Two 
years later he made the same voyage and became the 
hero of the hour in London. In this trade with the 
Spanish plantations he had boldly disobeyed the orders of 
the Spanish king, who desired that such trade should be 
held by Spaniards only. On his return Hawkins had 
openly boasted of his exploits, and had even told 
De Silva, the ambassador of Philip, king of Spain, that 
he should soon go on another voyage of the same kind. 
De Silva wrote to Philip, whose lively interest was at 



O FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

once shown by the startled exclamations "Ojo! Ojo!'* 
which he inscribed in the margin of his ambassador's 
letter. In 1567 Hawkins left England on his third voy- 
age, sold his negroes in the Spanish colonies in the 
West Indies, and while skirting the coast of Cuba was 
caught in a storm and driven to Mexico near Vera Cruz. 
Here he was betrayed by Spanish officials acting under 
Philip's orders, and with a few men barely escaped to 
England. 

Hawkins' work was the beginning of the English slave 
trade between Africa and America. But for the next 
hundred years very few negroes were brought into the 
North American colonies. During this period three 
African trading companies were chartered by the kings 
of England ; but the last of these surrendered its charter 
*n 1672 and a new trading company, called the Royal 
African Company, was given a charter to trade in Africa 
and send slaves to America. This new company had a 
capital of $500,000, and paid the old company $175,000 
for its forts and warehouses in Africa. It had agencies 
in London where merchants of that city gave orders for 
slaves just as for other merchandise. The planters in 
the colonies sent their orders for slaves to the London 
merchants. In 1713 Spain and England formed the 
Assiento or treaty by which the Royal African Com- 
pany obtained a complete monopoly of the slave trade 
for thirty years. The Company agreed to pay the king 
of Spain 200,000 florins and 337]- florins for each slave 
imported into Spain. The sovereigns of England and 
Spain were each to receive one-fourth of the profits of 
the Company. The Company agreed to furnish the 
colonies 144,000 thousand slaves in the thirty years, at 
the rate of 4,800 each year, but could supply as many 



THE MIDDLE PASSAGE. 9 

more negroes as it could sell. The Royal African Com- 
pany as an exclusive trading body ceased in 1750, when 
Parliament threw open the slave trade to any merchant 
who would pay a fee of forty shillings. 

By means of these companies a steady stream of 
negroes flowed to the new world. For a hundred years 
before the American Revolution thousands of black men 
were unloaded and sold each year at the American ports. 
From 16S0 to 1688, the Royal African Company sent 
249 ships from England to Africa and transported 60,000 
slaves to America. Nor were English merchants alone 
responsible for this trade. Each year saw numerous 
slavers leave Boston, Salem, Providence and Newport 
to engage in the trade. By 1 700, the number of negroes 
taken yearly rose to 25,000, and from 1733 to 1750 the 
number averaged more than 20,000 each year. Prob- 
ably more than half of all these were sold to the North 
American colonies. By 1775, more than 300,000 negroes 
had been sold as slaves along the coast from Maine to 
Georgia. 

III. THE MIDDLE PASSAGE. 

These numbers are appalling when taken in connec- 
tion with the capture of the negroes on the African coast 
and the horrors of the " Middle Passage " to America. 
When the slaver lay at anchor on the African coast, 
bands of armed men went to the interior, seized the 
wretched victims, bound them back to back, and in the 
morning put them, tied hand and foot, on board the slave 
ship. The " Middle Passage " was a long voyage from 
the west coast of Africa to the new world, and under a 
hot and burning sky. For more than three thousand 
miles in the torrid zone, the slave ship formed the worst 



IO FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

of prisons. Sometimes as many as five hundred negroes 
were crowded on board a small vessel of only two hun- 
dred tons. In the morning all the captives were com- 
pelled to come up on deck to " dance " for exercise. If 
one refused, the frightful cat-o'-nine-tails was used. 
Open rebellion met instant death. Those who were dis- 
orderly suffered the thumb-screws or were chained by 
the neck and limbs. The daily food was salt pork and 
beans. At sunset all were driven below and forced to 
lie side by side on the bare boards. To prevent mutim^, 
whole rows were chained together and to the floor. 
Here at night the air grew thick and hot, diseases were 
communicated, curses and groans and sobbings were 
heard, and in the morning, exhausted and feverish, the 
slaves went to the deck. On a stormy voyage it was 
awful. Then, all were driven below, the hatches were 
securely fastened down, and all ventilation ceased. When 
the storm was past, those who were alive were allowed 
to come forth with parched mouths and tongues swollen. 
Sometimes one-half or even two-thirds of all the negroes 
died on the " Middle Passage; " but the average loss of 
life was from ten to fifteen out of every hundred. 

IV. COLONIAL SLAVERY: 1619-1775. 

Slaves were in all of the thirteen colonies. In 1775, 
from New Hampshire to Georgia inclusive, the whites 
numbered about 2,000,000 and the blacks 500,000; but 
five-sixths of all the slaves were held south of the bound- 
ary line between Pennsylvania and Maryland. In the 
four New England colonies there were not far from 
25,000. In the four middle colonies of New York, New 
Terse)', Pennsylvania and Delaware the negroes num- 



COLONIAL SLAVERY. II 

bered about 50,000. In the remaining five colonies the 
slaves numbered over 425,000. In 1775, in the New Eng- 
1 tnd colonies there were forty-two whites to one black, 
ami in the four middle colonies thirteen to one; but in the 
five southern colonies the slaves outnumbered the whites. 

SLAVE LAWS. 

By law, in each of the thirteen colonies the slave was 
the property of his master; he could be bought, sold, 
leased, loaned, bequeathed by will, mortgaged and seized 
f jr debt, and could neither hold nor acquire property. 
The clothes that he wore, the cabin in which he lived, 
and the wife and children who toiled with him in the 
fields, belonged to his master. The slave could be pun- 
ished as the master saw fit, and if death resulted, the law 
presumed the master innocent on the ground that he 
would not intentionally destroy his own property. The 
usual legal punishments were starvation, crucifixion and 
burning. If a slave ran away he at once became an 
outlaw and was hunted as an animal. He could not 
leave the plantation without a written permit, and if 
found without one could be whipped by each person into 
whose hands he fell until he was returned to his master. 
He could not own a gun or any weapon of defense. 
The law forbade him to wander about at night or to 
assemble at feasts or funerals or any gatherings in par- 
ties of more than seven. Three facts modify our view 
of these severe lawc: harsh laws were common at that 
time, the savage nature of many newly arrived slaves 
made strict restraint necessary, and the natural kindness 
of the owners prevented the execution of the laws to the 
great majority of the negroes. 



12 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

It is certain that outside of the Carolinas and Georgia 
the slaves were well and mildly treated. They had suf- 
ficient food, were fairly clothed, and not overworked or 
often beaten. In the northern and middle colonies thev 
were employed as house servants or doing all kinds of 
menial work in the cities. In the southern colonies thev 
toiled in the fields in the cultivation of tobacco, indisro 
ami rice. In Connecticut only one or two slaves were 
held by one person, while in Maryland one wealthy 
planter owned thirteen hundred negroes, and one planter 
in Virginia nine hundred slaves. The average number 
on each Carolina plantation was thirty. Each plantation 
was a community by itself. All the trades were repre- 
sented. Part of the slaves were house servants; one 
was his master's coachman, another a blacksmith or a 
carpenter, and still others were held hands. The "neoro 
quarter " was the collection of small, whitewashed cabins 
where the slaves of the plantation lived. Here they 
gathered after the day's work was over, told stories, 
sang songs and watched their children at play. Thev 
were fond of music and delighted in brilliant colors. 
They were densely ignorant and superstitious. When 
night came on and groups gathered in the firelight, their 
eyes rolled in terror at the stories of witches, ghosts and 
devils. The " great house," as the slaves called it, was 
the planter's home. This was a long and wide building, 
with large rooms and a spacious hallway in the center. 
Around it were line driveways and acres of well-kept 
grounds, covered with stately oak trees which cast their 
deep shadows in the long summer of the South. 



OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. 1 3 

V. OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. 

In 1775, over 400.000 slaves toiled in the tobacco, rice 
and indigo fields of the South, but their hard lot had 
been noticed, and from time to time sympathetic voices 
had been heard in their behalf. Though these voices of 
freedom were scattered far and wide, and heard only at 
intervals, yet they were not raised in vain. They were 
like the prelude to some great piece of music, whose 
first clear notes, dying away in silence, break at last into 
the full movement. 

The first recorded petition against slavery in the col- 
onies was drawn up by some Quakers of Germantown, 
Pa., in 1688. They said it was " not lawful to buy or 
keep slaves." This was onry six years after Philadelphia^ 
was founded. William Penn held slaves, but in his will 
made them free at his death. In 1758 the Society of 
Friends forbade any slave-buyer to sit in their meetings. 
Through the influence of the Quakers, thousands of 
slaves were set free bv their masters. But the Friends 
were not the only religious body that spoke for freedom. 
In 1780 the Methodists, at their eighth conference, 
voted " slave-keeping hurtful to society and contrary to 
the laws of God, man, and nature." Five years later 
the Methodist conferences of Virgini". and North Caro- 
lina asked the assemblies of those States to abolish 
slavery. The first prominent abolitionist was Rev. 
Samuel Hopkins, of Rhode Island. During the Revolu- 
tion, he published an argument for abolition in the form 
of a dialogue and dedicated it to Congress. Washington 
spoke and wrote against slavery. His most intimate 
friend and neighbor, George Mason, spoke bitterly of 
the system. Patrick Henry poured out his scorn for the 



14 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

wrong. Thomas Jefferson wrote, " I tremble for my 
country when I reflect that God is justice and that his 
justice cannot sleep forever." Benjamin Franklin was 
president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Richard 
Henry Lee and Edmund Randolph desired freedom for 
all slaves. James Madison said that the words " slave " 
and " slavery " were not used in the national constitution 
because the men who sat in the great convention of 1787 
would not admit that there could be property in human 
beings. Thus, everywhere and by everybody, slavery 
was looked upon as a wrong, and it was not long before 
numerous societies were formed to abolish slavery. The 
first abolition society was organized in Pennsylvania in 
1774, and Benjamin Franklin was elected its president. 
John Jay was president of the New York Abolition 
Society. From 1774 to I 79 2 sucri societies had been 
formed in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New 
Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, and during the same 
period Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont 
had abolished slavery and Delaware had forbidden the 
slave-trade. In North Carolina there was a strong senti- 
ment against slavery, especially among the Quakers. 
Thus in every colony except South Carolina and Geor- 
gia there was a rising tide of feeling against slavery. 



VI. STATE LAWS: 1775-1785. 

This opposition to slavery showed itself most strongly 
from 1775 to 1785. During this period South Carolina 
raid Georgia gave no hope to the slave. North Carolina 
laid a tax of $25 on each negro imported. Virginia, 
Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey had forbidden the 
foreign slave trade. Pennsylvania, New York, Ver- 



■> 



ORDINANCE OF 1 787. 1 5 

mont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Rhode Island 
.had either abolished slavery outright or had passed laws 
which gave freedom to every child born after the law 
was passed. When the Revolution came, each State, 
except Connecticut and Rhode Island, adopted a new 
constitution, and in not a single constitution was slavery 
legallv established. The words " slave " or " slavery " 
were not even used in any one of the eleven new consti- 
tutions, except in the constitution of Delaware, where 
these words were used to abolish the slave trade. Con- 
necticut and Rhode Island did not adopt new constitu- 
tions, but they abolished both slavery and the slave trade. 
Thus, by 17S5, two states had done nothing for the 
negro, one had taxed the slave trade, four had forbidden 
it, and six had passed laws for immediate or gradual 
freedom. 

VII. THE ORDIXANXE OF 1787. 

The Ordinance of 1787 was a law passed by Congress 
creating a government for, and forever forbidding slav- 
ery in, all the land owned by the United States north and 
west of the Ohio river. This law abolished slavery in 
what is now the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wiscon- 
sin and Michigan. Thus by a single law, a territory 
almost as large as England and France was set apart for 
freedom. 

At the close of the Revolution, three States, Virginia, 
Massachusetts, and Connecticut, claimed this wist, un- 
known and forest-covered region. In 1784 Virginia and 
Massachusetts gave up all claim to it, and sixteen years 
later Connecticut surrendered to the United States her 
" Western Reserve." Thomas Jefferson carried to Con- 



1 6 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

gress the Virginia deed of her claim. He urged Con- 
gress to abolish slavery, not only in the northwest 
territoiy, but also in the southwest territory, and thus 
give to freedom all the land from the mountains to the 
Mississippi river. He wished to hem in slavery by the 
ocean and a strong chain of free States; but he lost bv 
asking too much, and it was not until three years later, 
when he was minister in France, that the question again 
came before Congress. 

The Ohio Company was started mainly by the efforts 
of General Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Tupper. Put- 
nam had been for some distance down the Ohio river 
and had caught glimpses of that fertile soil which he 
knew in time would support millions of people. He 
went back to New England and published glowing ac- 
counts of the country, and proposed that a company 
should be formed to secure lands for the Revolutionary 
soldiers. In 1786 delegates from eight counties in Massa- 
chusetts met at Boston and heard Putnam and Tupper 
describe the country and the plan of the company. The 
result was the formation of the Ohio Company. Put- 
nam, Samuel Parsons and Manasseh Cutler were made 
directors, and Cutler was sent to New York City, where 
Congress then sat, to buy land for the Ohio Company. 
Cutler met many members of Congress and offered to 
buy 5,000,000 acres of land on condition that slavery 
should not be allowed in the territory. Congress was 
eager to sell the land and a bargain was quickly made. 
The result was the famous Ordinance of 1787. The 
three men who had most to do in securing the passage 
of this great law of Congress were Thomas Jefferson, 
Rufus King and William Grayson. On the day that it 
passed eight States were represented in Congress by 



CONVENTION OF 1 787. 1 7 

eighteen delegates, and seventeen voted " Aye." One 
man from New York voted "No." The law declared 
that "There shall be neither slavery nor involuntary 
servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the pun- 
ishment of crimes, whereof the party shall have been 
duly convicted." 



VIII. THE CONVENTION OF 1787. 

While Congress at New York City was debating the 
Ordinance of 1787, a far greater body of men at Phila- 
delphia was considering the Constitution of the United 
States. This convention consisted of delegates from 
twelve States and was held in Independence Hall, where 
the Declaration of Independence was signed. Washing- 
ton was president of the convention. Benjamin Frank- 
lin, over eighty years of age, was there to give the bene- 
fit of his long and varied experience in public affairs. 
Alexander Hamilton, with a mind more brilliant and 
constructive than any other in that great assemblage, 
left his law practice in New York to attend the conven- 
tion. Madison, one of the most careful and thoughtful 
of men, was there. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson 
were absent as ambassadors in Europe. Sam. Adams 
and Patrick Henry stood aloof, critical and suspicious. 
Sixtv-five delegates were elected to the convention, but 
ten of them never attended. Thirty-nine signed their 
names to the Constitution. Every State except Rhode 
Island was represented. The convention held almost 
daily sessions from May 25 to September 17. When the 
Constitution was completed it was found that it con- 
tained three important provisions relating to slavery. 
2 



l8 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

The first was the clause providing for the return of 
runaway slaves. It declared that a slave escaping into 
a free State should not gain his freedom by any law of 
the free State, but should be returned to his owner. 
This clause was put into the Constitution mainly through 
the efforts of Pierce Butler, of South Carolina. Butler 
seems to have been a sharp and persistent attorney in 
the interest of slavery. To carry out this provision, 
Congress, in 1793, passed the first Fugitive Slave Law. 
which gave the owner the legal right to enter a free 
State in pursuit of his slave, bind him in chains and 
return him into helpless, hopeless bondage. This law 
was at once put into operation. Under it a negro bov 
in Massachusetts was arrested, and Josiah Quincy de- 
fended him in court. Later Quincy said he " heard a 
noise and, turning around, he saw the constable lying 
sprawling on the floor and a passage opening through 
the crowd through which the fugitive was taking his 
departure, without stopping to hear the opinion of the 
court." This law was also used to capture the free 
negroes, who then numbered thousands in North Caro- 
lina, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland. A brutal 
slave driver would pretend ownership of a free negro, 
chase him with bloodhounds through swamps and fields, 
and when he was captured, sell him into slavery. By 
1796 this kidnaping had become such a common occur- 
rence that Delaware asked the government of the United 
States to stop it. The Quakers of North Carolina also 
asked Congress to protect the liberty of one hundred 
and thirty-four free negroes who had been kidnaped. 
Four negroes of North Carolina petitioned Congress for 
protection. The free negroes of Philadelphia in 1799 
asked Congress to stop kidnaping in Maryland and Penn- 



CONVENTION OF 1 787. 1 9 

sylvania. A violent debate sprang up in Congress when 
these petitions were read. Jackson, of Georgia, said 
that property in slaves would be in danger if any extra 
attention was given the petitions. Congress voted to 
give back to the North Carolina Quakers their petition. 
Other petitions were not considered. Kidnaping contin- 
ued. The Fugitive Slave Law stood for fifty-seven 
years and produced a long history of outrages. 

The second provision of the Constitution relating to 
slavery declared that Congress should not stop the slave- 
trade before 1808. All the States but South Carolina 
and Georgia wished to put into the Constitution a clause 
abolishing the trade at once. Charles Pinckney, of 
South Carolina, plainly told the delegates from the other 
States that his State would not agree to the Constitu- 
tion if it prohibited the slave-trade. " No slave-trade, 
no Union " was the clear-cut statement of Rutledge and 
Pinckney. But with this difficulty arose another. The 
New England States wished to give Congress power to 
regulate commerce. Before 1787, each State had con- 
trol of foreign commerce and there were as many sets 
of rules and taxes on imported goods as there were 
States. This interfered very greatly with trade. New 
England was largely interested in this foreign trade. 
Her vessels plied constantly between Europe and 
America. Therefore New England, in order to increase 
the amount of trade, wished to give Congress the power 
to regulate that trade. But the South was afraid New 
England would soon get control of all the vessels run- 
ning between Europe and America, and would raise 
the freight rates on all goods shipped either way. Here 
was a chance for a bargain between the North and the 
South. New Hampshire, Massachusetts and Connecti- 



20 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

cut agreed to allow the slave-trade to run for twenty 
years, or until 1808, if Georgia and South Carolina 
would vote to give Congress power to regulate com- 
merce. The two slave States accepted, and for twentv 
years longer not a year went by that did not see hundreds 
of negroes suffer the horrors of the " Middle Passage." 
The third provision of the Constitution relating to 
slavery declared that each State should be represented 
in Congress according to its population, but that the 
population should be found by adding to the whole num- 
ber of free persons three-fifths of all the slaves. This 
almost doubled the power of the South in Congress. In 
1790, there were only 40,000 slaves in the States north 
of Mason and Dixon's line, while south of that line there 
were over 650,000. The total number of representatives 
in Congress was sixty-five, and out of this number the 
six southern States had thirty members of Congress. 
Thirteen of the thirty southern members represented 
slaves who were not citizens and who could not vote. 
Thus one planter in the South had nearly twice as much 
power in Congress as a farmer or merchant in the North. 
But this was not all. A very small number of wealthy 
and aristocratic families held all the political power of 
the South. It was indeed a generous and noble aristoc- 
racy. Its members prided themselves on their manhood, 
bravery, kindness and hospitality. But these wealthy 
families ruled the South, and more than that, a few 
thousand of these great planters were now given as much 
power in Congress as 1,900,000 free persons at the 
North. In the free States this was felt to be unfair; but 
in order to form the Union, the North was forced to 
agree to it, and for seventy years the South used with 
vigor the advantage extorted by fear. 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 21 

IX. DECLINE OF ANTI-SLAVERY SENTI- 
MENT: 1790-1820. 
For thirty years following- the convention of 1787, 
agitation of the slavery question gradually died out. 
This was due to several causes. The Constitution itself 
cut off all hope. It clearly and strongly recognized 
slavery as a fact. The rendition of fugitive slaves, the 
continuance of the slave trade, and the representation of 
slaves, were the three great conditions of Union. The 
second bar to slavery agitation was the fact that the 
best intelligence of the country was directed to the 
organization of the new government. Laws had to be 
made, courts established, numerous departments set in 
operation, an army and a navy formed, debts paid, a 
revenue system adopted, a rebellion put down, and vari- 
ous other domestic and foreign questions settled. Hardly 
was the new government well under way when a series 
of foreign questions absorbed public attention, and soon 
led to war. Public attention to this new danger, and to 
the questions to which it gave rise, allowed no room for 
slavery agitation. The formation of two great political 
parties during the first thirty years of the Union also pre- 
vented such agitation. Political intrigue and partisanship, 
caucus and campaign held the close attention of thousands 
of men besides such leaders as Jefferson and Hamilton. 
Thus the Constitution, the organization of the new gov- 
ernment, the formation of parties, and foreign war 
opposed the rise of anti-slavery sentiment. 

X. THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE: 1820. 

The Missouri Compromise was a law passed by Con- 
gress and signed by the President, prohibiting slavery 
in all the territory north of the southern boundary of Mis- 



2 2 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

souri and west of the Mississippi river, except Missouri, 
which was admitted as a slave State. About the same 
time Maine was admitted as a free State to balance the 
admission of Missouri as a slave State, t or the sake of 
peace and Union, the North voted to spread slavery 
over a vast and fertile country and the South voted for 
freedom over a yet greater and richer domain. For the 
sake of the great republic, the North voted for what it 
thought was a moral wrong and the South gave up what 
it thought was a clear legal right. The North violated 
its conscience and the South sacrificed the rights of a 
brave and proud people. Both sides were honest, and 
both laid their sacrifice on the altar of the Union. 

The North and the South, in 1820, differed in resources 
and in power. There were then eleven free and eleven 
slave States. Mason and Dixon's line and the Ohio 
river divided the two sections. North of this line there 
was a population of over 5,000,000 and south of it were 
over 4,500,000 persons, of whom 1,500,000 were slaves. 
By the three-fifths rule the slaves counted for nearly 
1,000,000 and sent twenty-six representatives to Congress. 
The North sent 133 and the South 90 representatives 
to the lower house of Congress. The two sections were 
equal in the Senate and a southern slaveholder was Presi- 
dent. The North manufactured more than $4,000,000 
worth of cotton goods, while the South manufactured 
less than $1,000,000 worth of cotton. Most of the in- 
ventions and machinery were produced and used at the 
North. Most of the tools and farming implements of 
the South were home-made and rude. For more than 
a thousand miles, from eastern Massachusetts to west- 
ern Illinois, farm and factory, mine and manufactory 
made the North a hive of industry; while from eastern 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 23 

Virginia to western Louisiana stretched a thousand miles 
of tobacco and cotton plantations, worked by slaves and 
supporting a white population. 

These were the two sections that squarely faced each 
other on the question of slavery in Missouri. The con- 
test took place at the Capitol in Washington. At the 
outset the South had the advantage. The President and 
a majority of his cabinet were slave-holders. The Senate 
was strongly for the South, and most of the ablest men of 
the nation — Jefferson, Madison, Clay and Calhoun — 
were in favor of slavery in Missouri. 

The bill to admit Missouri came before Congress in 
February, 1819. Mr. Tallmadge, of New York, moved 
that no more slaves be allowed to enter Missouri, and that 
all slaves in that Territory should be free at the age of 
twenty-five years. This was the famous " Tallmadge 
Amendment." It passed the House, but the Senate 
voted against it. Mr. Scott, of Missouri, said the Tall- 
madge Amendment was " big with the fate of Caesar 
and of Rome." Mr. Cobb, of Georgia, said that if the 
North persisted in that amendment the Union would be 
dissolved and that they "were kindling a fire which all 
the waters of the ocean could not extinguish. It could 
be extinguished only in blood." Tallmadge replied: 
" If a dissolution of the Union must take place, let it be 
so! If a civil war, which gentlemen so much threaten, 
must come, I can only say, let it come." 

During the summer of 1819, Congress adjourned and 
the Missouri question was taken before the people. 
Great excitement prevailed. Large public meetings 
were held in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Trenton 
and Baltimore, and sent strong protests to Congress 
against allowing slavery in Missouri. Daniel Webster 



24 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

wrote a noble protest against extending slavery. The 
legislatures of six northern States protested against ex- 
tending slavery in the Territories. The newspapers made 
the North a unit on the question. Nor was the South 
less united. Jefferson said that the strife fell on his ear 
"like a fire-bell in the night," but that "The question is 
a mere part}' trick " to give the Federalists control of 
the North. The Federalist party, being unpopular for 
having opposed the War of 1812, and needing a new and 
popular political war cry, chose the battle cry of free- 
dom. The South believed it was a party trick and not 
the sincere sentiment of the North towards slavery. The 
truth is that party politics did influence the northern 
politicians, but beneath this surface fact lay the innate 
and deep-seated antagonism between freedom and 
slavery. 

In the winter of 1819-20 the question again came be- 
fore Congress. Both sides brought great determination 
and ability to the contest. During the debate, Mr. Rug- 
gles, of Ohio, said: "The people of Missouri fifty years 
hence will trace, not to a British king, not to a corrupt 
British Parliament, but to Congress the evils of slavery.' 1 
Mr. Cook, of Illinois, said: "Unless she comes in the 
white robes of freedom and a pledge against the further 
evils of slaven', with my consent she will not be admit- 
ted." John Tyler replied: "Rail at slavery as much 
as you please, I point you to the Constitution and say to 
you that you have not only acknowledged our right to 
this species of property, but you have gone much fur- 
ther, and have bound yourselves to rivet the chains of 
the slave." Clay's clarion voice rang out for slavery, 
and once he whispered to a member that within five 
years the Union would break up into three confedera- 



MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 25 

cies — North, South, and West. During this debate the 
House sat in what is now Statuary Hall. Between 
the lofty columns hung crimson curtains. Over the 
Speaker's chair was a canopy of crimson silk. Chairs 
and desks were arranged to seat one hundred and eighty- 
seven members of the House. Here for months north- 
ern members spoke for freedom and southern planters 
urged the rights of property under the Constitution. 
One day when the House was in session the clanking 
of chains and the crack of a whip was heard outside and 
several members ran to the window and saw a villainous 
looking slave driver with a gang of fifteen negroes going 
w est on Capitol hill. The slaves were handcuffed and 
chained to each other, and the women and children were 
placed at the rear of the procession. At another time, 
a black face in the gallery alarmed the southern mem- 
bers and debate was stopped till the listening negro was 
removed. But the great debate took place just across 
the rotunda of the Capitol in the Senate chamber. There 
Rufus King, of New York, made the best and strongest 
speech for the North. For forty years he* had held high 
positions in the government, had been minister to Eng- 
land, had declined Washington's invitation to be Secre- 
tary of State, had sat in the great convention of 1787, 
and now represented the Empire State in the Senate. 
His manner was courtly and dignified, his language 
exact and pure. John Quincy Adams, who heard him, 
said that during his speech the great slave-holders 
gnawed their lips and clenched their lists. The South put 
forward their greatest orator in the person of William 
Pinkney, of Maryland. He, too, had held the highest 
public offices. He had been attorney-general of Maryland, 
representative in the lower house of Congress, attorney- 



l6 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

general of the United States, minister to several Euro- 
pean countries, and was perhaps the ablest lawyer of the 
United States. He loved the law, and his one ambition 
was to be the finest of orators. He answered Rufus 
King. On the day that he spoke, members of the cabi- 
net came to the Senate. The House of Representatives 
went to hear him. Foreign diplomats crowded to hear 
the orator who was said to rival the great Burke in 
wealth of imagery and eloquence. 

More than a hundred ladies were on the floor of the 
Senate. He appeared in faultless dress, wearing tinted 
gloves and elaborate ruffles, as the style then ran. His 
speech had long been prepared, but it appeared to 
spring full armed from his brain as he stood the center 
and delight of that great assemblage. His gorgeous 
display of eloquence more than satisfied his brilliant 
audience. 

The South controlled the Senate, and the North the 
House. Neither would yield in full to the other; and 
so Jesse B. Thomas, a senator from Illinois, proposed 
the compromise line of 36° 30'. He, and not Clay, was 
the real author of the Missouri Compromise of 1820. 
North of the compromise line, slavery, except in Mis- 
souri, was not allowed. South of that line slavery was 
permitted. 

The long contest over Missouri seemed ended. Maine 
was at once admitted into the Union and Missouri was 
directed to form a constitution. The people of Missouri, 
angry at the long delay, adopted a constitution which 
forever forbade her legislature to interfere with slavery 
and which prohibited free negroes from entering the 
State. The North broke forth in wrath at such a con- 
stitution and vowed never to admit such a State into the 



NULLIFICATION. 2>] 

Union. The South accused the North of bad faith in 
securing the admission of Maine and then keeping Mis- 
souri out. There were loud threats of disunion, but 
Clay brought forward a second compromise which pro- 
vided that Missouri should be admitted on condition that 
it would never enforce the constitution concerning free 
negroes. Missouri accepted and was admitted as a slave 
State in 1821. 

XL THE BALANCE OF POWER. 

For thirty years before the Missouri Compromise the 
South was alwa s watchful to balance slave territory 
against free territory. While all the northwest territory 
was given to freedom, every foot of land south of the 
Ohio river was given to slavery. To keep the North 
and South equal in the Senate, the States were admitted 
in pairs: Kentucky and Vermont, Tennessee and Ohio, 
Louisiana and Indiana, Mississippi and Illinois, Missouri 
and Maine. These States were not admitted together 
in point of time, but the " balance of power " was clearly 
recognized. An extra Southern State was admitted, and 
in 1821 there were twelve slave States and twelve free 
States. 

XII. NULLIFICATION: 1798-1832. 

For ten years after the Missouri Compromise the be- 
lief spread rapidly in the South that the duties on 
imported goods benefited the North and injured the 
South. The slave States, manufacturing very little, 
were yet compelled to pay heavy taxes on all imported 
articles. Slave labor produced immense quantities of 
cotton, tobacco and rice, and the undoubted interest of 



28 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

the South was a free trade with Europe. South Caro- 
lina well represented that interest. From that State 
alone was sent more than one-fourth of all the exports 
from southern fields. In 1832 South Carolina passed an 
Ordinance of Nullification which declared the tariff' laws 
" null, void, and no law, not binding upon this State, its 
officers or citizens." 

Nullification was not a new idea in 1832. One day, in 
the autumn of 1798, Thomas Jefferson, William Nicholas 
and George Nicholas were talking about the famous 
Alien and Sedition laws lately passed by Congress. 
Tefferson wished Virginia and Kentucky to join in a 
strong protest against the objectionable laws. He got 
from the two brothers a solemn pledge of secrecy and then 
wrote the " Resolutions of '98." George Nicholas pre- 
sented them to the legislature of Kentucky. Jefferson 
sent a copy of them to Madison, who then sat in the leg- 
islature of Virginia. Both States adopted the "Resolu- 
tions," which declared that the Alien and Sedition laws 
were " not law, . . . void, and of no effect," and that 
the Constitution was a compact. The main purpose of 
the Resolutions was to make a united and vigorous 
appeal to public opinion against bad laws. Nullification 
in 1798 meant at once a protest and an appeal and not 
secession. Jefferson and his friends had no thought of 
disunion. The governors of Kentucky and Virginia sent 
copies of the Resolutions to the various States. The 
five New England States with New Jersey and Dela- 
ware sent back a prompt and strong dissent from nulli- 
fication. Virginia built a new armory, laid new war 
taxes and drilled her militia; but, as not a single State 
had returned a favorable answer, Kentucky and Virginia, 
in 1799, saw fit to declare that disunion was not meant^ 



NULLIFICATION. 20, 

that only a protest had been made, and that love of the 
Union was strong in the two States. 

The feeling of disunion next appeared in New England 
itself. For months in 1804, the political leaders there 
plotted for disunion. Four causes led to this: The 
government of the United States had bought Louisiana; 
had reduced the army to a handful ; had almost ruined 
the navy, and New England was nearly powerless in 
public affairs. Massachusetts complained that the South 
had 850,000 slaves, represented by fifteen votes in Con- 
gress, and that if new States from the Louisiana Ter- 
ritory were admitted, the South would surely control 
the Union. Timothy Pickering, Aaron Burr and other 
leaders advocated a new Union of the free States with 
New Brunswick and with Nova Scotia. But the people 
would not support their leaders and the plan of disunion 
failed. 

Lack of attachment to the Union next showed itself 
west of the mountains. In 1804, after his duel with 
Hamilton, Burr fled to Philadelphia, where he proposed 
to the British minister to break up the Union if England 
would furnish money and arms to the Western men. 
From Philadelphia he went by way of the ocean to 
Georgia, thence across the State to South Carolina and 
back to Washington. Here General Wilkinson intro- 
duced him to many leading men from Kentucky and 
Louisiana. About this time, the plan to break up the 
Union was told to the French minister and shortly after- 
wards Burr went west to Pittsburg, down the Ohio to 
Blennerhasset's beautiful island home, and then south- 
west through the leading towns of Kentucky and Ten- 
nessee to New Orleans. Burr talked with Andrew 
Jackson, Henry Clay and all the prominent men and 



30 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

reported that the West was ready for separation ; but 
when President Jefferson sent swift officers over the 
mountains to arrest him and had him tried for treason, 
the entire plan of a Mississippi valley republic was 
dropped. 

Nullification next appeared in New England in 1814. 
The people of that section had for years been dissatisfied 
with the general government and for two years had 
sternly opposed the war with England. The Massachu- 
setts legislature called the Constitution a compact, de- 
clared for nullification, and voted to raise $1,000,000 for 
a State army of 10,000 men. Delegates from Massa- 
chusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut met in conven- 
tion at Hartford, and, after a session of three weeks, 
voted that the national government should not be per- 
mitted to retain the tariff duties collected in New Eng- 
land. Behind this demand was the distinct intention to 
break up the Union. To give way to this demand was 
to bankrupt the government, and to refuse was to bring 
certain disunion. Fortunately the brilliant victory won 
by General Jackson at New Orleans and the close of the 
war gave the people new confidence in the Union, and 
the sentiment of secession not only rapidly disappeared, 
but became a reproach and a byword to those who had 
held it. 

The last, and by far the greatest, attempt at nullifica- 
tion was made by South Carolina in 1832. Several facts 
led to this bold attack on the Union. In 1824 the North 
and West combined to pass a tariff law which was 
strongly opposed by the entire South. Webster him- 
self opposed it, and John Randolph threatened resistance 
by force. Three years later, Robert Turnbull, of South 
Carolina, published thirty-one essays on the " Crisis," 



NULLIFICATION. 3 1 

and advocated secession if justice was not done to the 
South with respect to the tariff laws and to slavery. He, 
and not Calhoun, was the real author of nullification in 
South Carolina. In 1828, Congress passed a law still 
more offensive to the South, called the " Tariff of Abom- 
inations." Five States at once protested against the law. 
A large mass meeting in South Carolina resolved against 
any further trade with the West and the North. Turn- 
bull now actively urged nullification and the new doc- 
trine grew in favor at the South. 

The " great debate " between the North and the South 
on the question of nullification took place in the Senate 
chamber at Washington in 1830. On that memorable 
twenty-sixth of January, every part of the room was 
densely crowded with senators, various public officers 
and visitors. Many members of the House were pres- 
ent. John C. Calhoun was president of the Senate. 
Several Southern men were grouped together for mutual 
support. A number of Massachusetts men stood in one 
part of the chamber, confident in the patriotism and 
power of their great senator. Webster spoke for the 
North, Hayne of South Carolina for the South. Hayne 
was a man of fine and lofty character, courteous, frank 
and sincere. He ranked high as a lawyer and an orator. 
Webster's very look expressed force and power. His 
abundant black hair, the superb, crag-like brow, the 
dark, piercing, deep-set eyes and the firm lines of the 
massive face marked him as a great antagonist. 1 lavne, 
with clear statement and persuasive oratory, had said that 
a State could nullify a law of Congress and that the 
Constitution was nothing but a compact or a contract. 
Webster denied the power of peaceable nullification and 
asserted that the Constitution was a great charter of 



32 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

government, "made for the people, made by the people, 
and answerable to the people." He showed that nulli- 
fication would make the Union "the servant of four-and- 
twenty masters, of different wills and different purposes, 
and yet bound to obey all." His speech was a great 
plea for the power and continuance of the Union. He 
took the vague and unformed sentiment of nationality 
and breathed into it the breath of life. His speech was 
"like an amendment to the Constitution." 

But the " nullifiers " were not dismayed. Shortly 
after the debate in the Senate, they planned to win 
President Jackson to their side. He was invited to a 
banquet in memory of Jefferson and was asked to deliver 
an address. He astonished the " nullifiers " by the toast 
which he gave — "The Federal Union, it must be pre- 
served," — and he spoke strongly for the Union. On 
July 4, 183 1, the States Rights party held a great cele- 
bration in Charleston, South Carolina. A huge build- 
ing in the form of a pentagon, and seating 12,000 peo- 
ple, had been r erected for the occasion. Festoons of 
flowers and evergreens decorated the interior, and with- 
out were planted pine, hickory and palmetto trees. The 
ladies of the city^ also gave a beautiful banner. Hayne 
delivered the oration. In the same city and on the same 
day, a Union meeting was held. Several thousand per- 
sons, with waving banners and bands of music, marched 
in procession to a church, where speeches for the Union 
were made and where Washington's Farewell Address 
was read. President Jackson sent down a special letter 
which expressed his love for the Union. Dinner was 
served in a great building fifty feet wide and one hun- 
dred and fifty feet long. Festoons of flowers and ever- 
greens within, and trees without, also adorned the 



NULLIFICATION. 33 

structure. Three full-rigged vessels were placed over 
the front of the building. Above the archway were the 
words " Don't give up the ship." 

In November, 1832, 162 delegates met in convention 
in South Carolina and declared certain tarifflaws "null, 
void, and no law." The State armed and drilled 20,000 
men and built arsenals and depots for supplies. In 
December of the same year, President Jackson issued a 
proclamation to the rebellious State in which he denied 
the power of nullification, and warned South Carolina to 
yield. Hayne, who was now governor of that State,issued 
a proclamation defying the President. Calhoun took 
Hayne's place in the Senate of the United States to de- 
fend nullification. The President now asked Congress 
for extra power to enforce the tariff laws. This was 
granted by the " Force Bill," which became a law in 
March, 1833. In the meantime, Henry Clay proposed 
and secured the passage of a new tariff law which was 
acceptable to the South. In view of the firm stand of 
the President and of the compromise by Clay, South 
Carolina yielded, and repealed her ordinance of nulli- 
fication. 

The general result of the whole controversy was a vic- 
tory for the Union. As a protest against unpopular laws, 
nullification had succeeded; as a principle, it had failed. 
It never afterwards was used even as a form of protest; 
but the doctrines behind it — that the Constitution is a 
compact and that each State is sovereign — spread 
throughout the entire South until the opening of the 
Civil War. 
3 



34 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

XIII. "OLD NAT'S WAR:" 1831. 

In 1831, a band of negroes in Virginia, under the lead 
of Nat Turner, rose against their masters, murdered 
fifty-five persons and became the terror of the whole 
State. Turner was born in 1800 and was owned by a 
wealthy planter. In 1830, his master hired him out to 
a wealthy planter named Joseph Travis, who treated the 
slave well. But Nat was not content to be a slave and 
soon ran away. He had early learned to read and write 
and also became deeply religious. He had a vivid vision 
of a great combat between white spirits and black spirits 
far up in the sky. He thought himself a prophet and 
believed God had given him a mission to free the 
negroes. He avoided a crowd, was dreamy and never 
laughed. He was below the usual height, feeble in 
body, with thin hair, flat nose, and had a shrewd ex- 
pression. 

An eclipse in 1831 seemed to Turner a visible sign 
from Heaven to fulfill his mission. He held a secret 
meeting with five other negroes and they agreed to spare 
neither age nor sex. The band soon numbered over 
sixty, making a raid of about twenty miles through 
Southampton county and murdering fifty-five white per- 
sons. Swift companies of white men quickly formed 
and the whole southeastern part of Virginia was in 
arms. A reward of $1,100 was offered for Turner's 
capture. For six weeks he lay hid under a pile of rails, 
but was at last caught. He and twelve other negroes 
were tried, convicted and hung. This murderous raid 
sent a thrill of terror into every Southern home. Nu- 
merous plots in other parts of the South were also 
reported, and every planter felt that Southern society 



THE ABOLITIONISTS. 35 

rested on a volcano. Virginia passed severe laws against 
the negroes, forbade their meetings and ordered the ar- 
rest of their preachers. 

This terrible fear explains in part why the South so 
bitterly opposed all the efforts of the Northern abolition- 
ists. In 1S35, President Jackson asked Congress to close 
the mails to all papers, pamphlets and books which 
might lead to slave insurrection. John C. Calhoun in- 
troduced such a bill in the Senate, where it was lost by 
only six votes. The mail bags were broken open in 
South Carolina and a bonfire was made of the abolition 
documents. Petitions to Congress on the subject of 
shivery met with violent opposition. Ex-President John 
Quiney Adams presented to the House hundreds of 
petitions against slavery. One day he presented 511, 
representing 300,000 persons at the North. The whole 
House was in an uproar. Cries of "Censure him!" 
k - Exoel him! " arose. After three days of passionate de- 
bate and violent abuse, Adams got the floor and made a 
great speech for the right of petition. But the House 
adopted the " Atherton gag rule," which provided that 
all petitions be laid on the table " without being debated, 
printed or referred." This rule held from 1836 to 1844. 

XIV. THE ABOLITIONISTS: 1830-1840. 

The first leading abolitionist was Benjamin Lundy. 
From 1820 to 1830 he traveled over 25,000 miles, 5,000 
miles afoot, gave hundreds of addresses, and visited nine- 
teen States, Canada, Hayti, Texas and Mexico. He 
organized many abolition societies and published a paper 
called " The Genius of Universal Emancipation." By 
his efforts the first national abolition convention was held 



36 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

at Baltimore in 1826. He died in 1839, after having given 
nearly his whole life to free the slaves. 

Of all the abolitionists, none stands out more clearly 
than William Lloyd Garrison. In 1830 he was tried and 
convicted in Baltimore for publishing an article on slav- 
ery. He was sentenced to pay a fine of $50, and not 
being able to do so was lodged in jail for seven weeks. 
While in prison he wrote a fierce letter against slavery. 
After leaving Baltimore he gave several lectures on his 
way from Philadelphia to Boston. At this city, on Jan- 
uarv 1, 1831, he issued the Liberator, the most remark- 
able paper ever published in the United States. On its 
very front sheet was the picture of an auction where 
" slaves, horses and other cattle " were offered for sale, 
and near this was seen a whipping post at which a slave 
was being flogged. In the background was the Capitol 
at Washington with the flag unfurled above the dome. 
In the first issue of the Liberator he wrote: "I will be 
as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. 
. . . I am in earnest. I will not equivocate — I will 
not excuse, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be 
heard." In 1835 at a meeting held by some abolition- 
ists in Boston, a mob seized him, put a rope around his 
body, dragged him through the streets, and would have 
taken his life had not the mayor rescued him and placed 
him in jail for protection. When President Tvler visited 
Boston, Garrison published two addresses. In one he 
asked the President to free his slaves. In the other he 
addressed the slaves of the South as follows: ''If you 
come to us and are hungry, we will feed you: if thirsty, 
we will give you drink; if naked, we will clothe you; 
if sick, will administer to your necessities; if in prison, 
we will visit you; if you will need a hiding place from 



THE ABOLITIONISTS. 37 

the face of the pursuer, we will provide one that even 
blood-hounds will not search out." 

The Liberator had a small circulation, but it roused 
the wrath of every Southern planter. South Carolina 
offered a reward of $1,500 to convict any person found 
circulating the Liberator in that State. Nor was this 
paper without effect at the North. Nine years after the 
first issue, there were 2,000 abolition societies with 200,000 
members enrolled. 

While Garrison was stirring the South to its center, 
Elijah P. Lovejoy, at Alton, Illinois, paid with his life 
his devotion to the cause of abolition. Lovejoy was 
born in Maine and graduated from a small college in 
that State. In 1826 he went to St. Louis, Missouri, as 
a teacher, but soon became the editor of a religious 
paper. Later he removed to Alton, Illinois. While he 
was here a case in the courts aroused his indignation. 
A negro had aided two quarreling sailors to escape from 
an officer. For this the negro was arrested, and on be- 
ing told that his punishment would be five years in 
prison, he broke away from the officers and stabbed one 
of them fatally. He was recaptured, but was taken 
from the jail by a mob and slowly burned to death 
at the stake. For twenty minutes the flames coiled and 
hissed about him and he died after the most frightful 
agony. Judge Lawless told the grand jury to do nothing 
with the murderers. Lovejoy in his paper commented 
severely on the heartless judge. A public meeting was 
soon called to stop the further issues of Lovejoy's paper. 
To the surprise of the crowd, Lovejoy appeared at the 
meeting. He told them that his conscience would not 
let him stop in his course and that he spoke only for 



j8 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

truth and justice. His speech made a great impression, 
but it was not lasting;. 

About this time he ordered a new printing press, and 
it reached Alton in the morning of November 7. 1837. 
The mob blew horns to notify all that it had come. At 
ten o'clock in the evening, about thirty men came out of 
a saloon, went to the printing office and demanded the 
press. Lovejoy, with seven others within the building, 
refused. The mob then threw stones through the win- 
dows, and both sides fired shots. Soon was heard the 
cry, "Burn them out!'' and a ladder was brought for 
that purpose. Lovejoy now came out of the building 
and was at once shot and killed. The mob then broke 
the press in pieces and threw the type and fragments 
into the Mississippi river. The next day the body of 
Lovejoy was borne home with scoffing to his wife and 
children. He lies buried on a bluff overlooking- the great 
river. 

News of this tragedy soon traveled over the North. 
W. E. Channing, the noted minister of Boston, together 
with one hundred other citizens, called a meetin"- at Faneuil 
Hall on December 8, 1837. A great audience was present. 
James T. Austin, the attorney-general of Massachusetts, 
spoke and said that Lovejoy " died as the fool dieth.'" 
Wendell Phillips sat in that audience. He was unknown, 
but he quickly stepped to the platform and with flashing- 
eye and intense force he said of Austin, "for the senti- 
ments he has uttered, on soil consecrated bv the prayers 
of the Puritans and the blood of patriots, the earth 
should have yawned and swallowed him up." He then 
followed with a speech which placed him in the front 
rank of American orators. 



THE LIBERTY PARTY. 39 

The abolitionists were very active all through the 
North from 1830 to 1840. By 1840 there were over 
2,000 abolition societies and 200,000 members. Thou- 
sands of speeches were made and millions of documents 
sent through the mails for the cause of abolition. Lowell 
and Whittier wrote poems for the new cause. Emerson 
said the abolitionists "might be wrong-headed, but 
they were wrong-headed in the right direction." But 
active as they were, they formed only a small part of 
the population. Not one man in ten was an abolitionist. 

At first they were hated and despised. Nearly all 
classes of society were against them. They were re- 
garded as fanatics and disturbers of the peace. Churches 
and halls were refused them. Mobs broke in on their 
meetings and stoned their speakers. But gradually the 
tide turned. The high character and purpose of the 
abolitionists compelled a respectful hearing, and with this 
hearing thousands of new abolitionists sprang up. 

XV. THE LIBERTY PARTY: 1840-1843. 

Out of all this agitation by the abolitionists arose a 
new political party. In 1840 the anti-slavery men held 
a national convention in New York to form the Liberty 
Party, and delegates were present from all the New 
England States, together with New York, New Jersey, 
Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. The convention voted 
to nominate a President and Vice-President and urged 
all members to vote for township, county and State of- 
ficers who were pledged against slavery. The new 
party cast only 6,784 votes for James G. Birney in 1840. 
But there were in fact 70,000 abolitionists then in the 
North. Nine-tenths of these did not vote for their party 



40 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

on account of disagreement as to the methods and prin- 
ciples. During the next three years, the various factions 
in the Liberty Party settled their differences, and in 

1843 a thousand delegates, representing every free 
State except New Hampshire, met in convention at 
Buffalo, New York, and nominated James G. Birney for 
President. He received over 62,000 votes. In no State 
did the abolitionists number more than one-tenth of the 
voters. But the noteworthy fact of the campaign of 

1844 was that the Liberty Party threw the election into 
the hands of the Democrats, who had openly declared 
for more slave territory. This result was brought about 
in the State of New York, where Polk had received 
only 5,000 more votes than Clay. In that State the 
Liberty Party had received 15,000 votes and these were 
drawn largely from the Whig Party. This result 
brought forth a storm of indignation from the Whigs, and 
the Liberty Party soon disbanded. 

XVI. THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 

In 182 1 the Spanish colonists of Mexico separated 
their country from Spain and three years later set up a 
republican form of government. Texas was one of the 
States of Mexico and had a mixed and scattered popu- 
lation of Spaniards, Indians and Americans. In 1830 
the President of Mexico issued his decree that further 
immigration from the United States should stop, that 
convicts from the prisons of Mexico should be settled in 
Texas, and that heavy taxes should be paid to the Mexi- 
can government. With scarcely 2,000 able-bodied men, 
Texas at once revolted and in 1833 adopted a constitu- 
tion of its own. Three years later Mexico tried to set 



THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 41 

aside the Texan self-government, but the people again 
rebelled and declared their independence on March 2, 
1836. The next year the United States, France, Eng- 
land and Belgium recognized the new republic of Texas. 
In 1836 the total population of Texas was only 100,000, 
and but 3,370 votes were cast that year for officers of 
the government. The army had but 2,200 men, and the 
navy consisted of four vessels carrying twenty-nine can- 
nons. The money was nearly worthless, there were no 
roads, no post-offices, no jails, no courts. 

But with all these disadvantages the bold Texan ran- 
gers were more than a match for the Mexican soldiers 
sent against them. Under the brilliant leadership of 
Sam. Houston their independence was maintained for 
years. General Sam. Houston was a man after Jack- 
son's own heart. He was born in Virginia but removed 
to Tennessee. Before he was thirty-five he was repre- 
sentative in Congress and governor of the State. On 
account of home troubles he resigned the governorship, 
fled to the Indians, adopted their habits, became a chief, 
and roamed for three years with them on the Western 
plains. He joined the Texans in their struggle for in- 
dependence, became their general, was elected President 
of the new republic, and when Texas sought admission 
to the United States he appeared in the Capitol at 
Washington, bearing in his hand the gift of his great 
Slate. 

Texas had no wish be a free and independent nation. 
Bands of settlers from Louisiana and Mississippi had 
gone into Texas and the sentiment was strongly in favor 
of admission into the Union. A Texas envoy had urged 
President Van Buren to declare annexation, but fearing 
opposition the President refused. Soon afterwards the 



J.2 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

Senate voted against annexation. In 1837 Webster 
voiced the opinion at the North in opposition to the ad- 
mission of Texas. For six years the question slept, but 
Southern men were determined to add Texas to the 
slave area of the Union. In the summer of 1843 the 
intrigue for annexation was in full progress. President 
Tyler was in favor of the plan. Andrew Jackson used 
his wide influence for it. The legislatures of Tennessee, 
Alabama and Mississippi declared for annexation. In 
March, 1844, John C. Calhoun was made Secretary of 
State, and by his management the plan moved forward 
by leaps and bounds. In April he promised the army 
and navy of the United States to aid Texas against 
Mexico. In the same month he sent a treaty of annexa- 
tion to the Senate, which voted against the admission of 
Texas. The question was at once thrown into the presi- 
dential campaign of 1844. 

XVII. THE CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF 

1844. 

The Whig national convention met at Baltimore on 
May I. Thousands were present and Henry Clay was 
nominated for President by acclamation. In April he 
had written a letter against annexation. As the cam- 
paign went on he became alarmed. He was surrounded 
by Southern men who wished more slave territory. In 
August he wrote his famous " Alabama"' letter, in which 
he stated that he wished to annex Texas "upon just and 
fair terms," and that "the subject of slavery ought not to 
affect the question one way or the other." This offended 
the Northern Whigs and defeated him. That letter 
drove enough Whigs into the Liberty Party in New 



THE WAR WITH MEXICO. 43 

York to carry the State for the Democratic Party, and 
on New York hinged the election for President. 

The Democratic national convention met at Baltimore 
on May 27. It boldly declared for " the re-annexation 
of Texas at the earliest practicable period " and Polk 
was nominated for President. After the election, the 
Democrats claimed that the people had declared for an- 
nexation, and Congress, at its next session in December, 
1845, admitted Texas as a State. 

XVIII. THE WAR WITH MEXICO: 1846-1848. 

A boundary line between Texas and Mexico was at 
once the subject of dispute. The United States claimed 
all the land to the Rio Grande, and Mexico held that the 
Nueces river was the rightful boundary. Texas had, 
indeed, claimed this strip, but the claim was only asserted 
and never established. Garret Davis, of Kentucky, 
said in the House at Washington in 1846, that "No 
Texan magistrate was ever seen, no Texan law was 
ever obeyed, no Texan jurisdiction was ever asserted, no 
Texan rule in any form, in this extent of territory, was 
known. All was Mexican from the beginning." Presi- 
dent Polk threw 4,000 troops into the disputed territory. 
A Mexican army crossed the Rio Grande and de- 
manded the withdrawal of the American troops. In 
April, 1846, sixty-three dragoons of the United States 
army were attacked by a larger force of Mexican troops 
and seventeen Americans were killed and wounded and 
the others forced to surrender. Swift messengers car- 
ried the news to Washington, and on May 11, 1846, 
President Polk sent to Congress a message in which he 
stated, " Mexico has passed the boundary of the United 



44 



FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 



States .... and shed American blood upon 
American soil. War exists, and exists by the act of 
Mexico herself.*' Two days later Congress passed a 
law giving the President complete power to call out, 
arm, organize and equip 50,000 men. The law declared 
that ' : war existed by the act of Mexico." For the next 
two years the armies of the United States passed rapidly 
from one brilliant victory to another, and at last stood 
conquerors in the city of Mexico itself. President Polk 
proclaimed peace on July 4, 1848. The war had lasted 
two years, had cost $130,000,000, and had added a vast 
domain to the Union. It had been denounced in the 
North and East, but was popular in the South and 
West. "The glory of the war was the glory of the 
South," and that section fully believed that a great em- 
pire had been added to the area of slavery. In 1845 
Macaulay, in Parliament, said of the United States, 
" That nation is the champion and upholder of slavery. 
The}- seek to extend slavery with more energy than was 
ever exerted by any other nation to diffuse civilization." 
With an army in the Mexican capital, the United 
States compelled that nation to give up 900,000 square 
miles of its territory. Every foot of that great area was 
free from slavery. The Mexicans anxiously asked that 
the treaty should forbid slavery in the ceded territory. 
The representative of the United States told them that 
if the land " were increased ten-fold in value, and, in ad- 
dition to that, covered a foot thick with pure gold, on 
the single condition that slavery should be forever ex- 
cluded," he would not " entertain the offer for a moment, 
nor even think of sending it to his government. No 
American President would dare to submit such a treaty 
to the Senate." 



THE WIJJUOT PROVISO. 45 

XIX. THE WILMOT PROVISO. 

The war had not been in progress three months when 
both North and South clearly saw that territory would 
be taken from Mexico. A few men at the North reso- 
lutely determined that not a foot of that territory should 
be given to slavery. In August, 1846, when Congress 
was considering a bill to put $2,000,000 into the Presi- 
dent's hands to secure more land from Mexico, David 
Wilmot moved a proviso to the bill making it "an ex- 
press and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any. 
territory from Mexico, that neither slavery nor involun- 
tary servitude shall ever exist therein." 

" His amendment made his name familiar at once 
throughout the length and breadth of the Republic. No 
question had arisen since the slavery agitation of 1820 
that was so elaborately debated. The Wilmot Proviso 
absorbed the attention of Congress for a longer time 
than the Missouri Compromise ; it produced a wider and 
deeper excitement in the country, and it threatened a 
more serious danger to the peace and integrity of the 
Union." The Wilmot Proviso did not become a law, 
but it raised up a powerful anti-slavery party at the 
" North. 

XX. THE CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF 

1848. 

The Democrats and Whigs were the two great po- 
litical parties in the election of 1848. The Democratic 
national convention met at Baltimore on May 22. 
New York sent two opposing delegations — called the 
Hunkers and the Barnburners. The Barnburners were 



46 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

pledged for the Wilmot Proviso. When the convention 
voted to admit both delegations, and so offend neither, 
both withdrew. Lewis Cass, of Michigan, was then 
nominated for President on a platform which carefully 
avoided the slavery question. 

The Whig national convention met at Philadelphia in 
June and nominated General Zaehary Taylor for Presi- 
dent on a platform which was silent on the slavery ques- 
tion. Webster used his great influence to elect Tavlor. 

In August the Free Soil Party met in a great conven- 
tion at Buffalo, New York. Four hundred and sixtv- 
five delegates represented eighteen States. Thev 
nominated Martin Van Buren for President, and adopted 
a bold and clear anti-slavery platform. They declared 
for " free soil to a free people " and that " Congress 
has no more power to make a slave than to make a 
king; to establish slavery than to establish a monarchy." 
They threw out a challenge to the South by the declara- 
tion, " We accept the issue which the slave-power has 
forced upon us; and to their demand for more slave 
States and more slave territory, our calm but final 
answer is, no more slave States and no more slave ter- 
ritory. There must be no more compromises with slav- 
ery; if made, they must be repealed." 

In the election that followed, the Barnburners in New 
York withdrew their support from Cass and voted for 
Van Buren. This gave the thirty-six electoral votes of 
that State to Taylor, and on New Yoik again hinged 
the election of the President. Taylor and Cass each 
carried fifteen States. The Free Soil Part)- did not 
carry a single State, but it turned every mind to the 
great question of slavery. 



THE COMPROMISE OF 185O. 47 

XXI. POLITICAL EXCITEMENT DURING 

1849. 
During the year that followed — 1849 — a steady rise 
of excitement marked both North and South. Almost 
every legislature in the Southern States had declared 
against the Wilmot Proviso, and every Northern State, 
except Iowa, had declared in favor of it. In January, 1849, 
over eighty Southern members of Congress at Wash- 
ington met in secret with doors locked, and adopted an 
address to the South. They declared Congress could not 
forbid slavery in the Territories, and they accused the 
North of violating the fugitive slave law. About the same 
time, Robert Toombs, of Georgia, voiced the feeling of the 
South when he said to the North, " We have the right 
to call on you to give your blood to maintain the slaves 
of the South in bondage. Gentlemen, deceive not your- 
selves ; you cannot deceive others. This is a pro-slavery 
government. Slavery is stamped on its heart — the 
Constitution." 

XXII. THE COMPROMISE OF 1850. 

Congress met, amid growing excitement, on Monday, 
December 3, 1849. Both sections had sent up men of 
the most marked ability. There appeared Jefferson 
Davis, the future President of a slave republic; Sam. 
Houston, of brilliant and romantic history; Thomas 
Benton, for thirty years a senator from Missouri; Pierre 
Soule', the eloquent senator from Louisiana; William H. 
Seward, the statesman of anti-slavery men; Salmon P. 
Chase, the aggressive advocate of freedom ; and Stephen 
A. Douglas, who was, perhaps, the strongest debater ever 



48 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

in Congress. But abovs all these appeared three men 
with greater reputation, wider influence and longer ex- 
perience in public affairs. Each was over seventy years 
of age, had had a national reputation for thirty years, 
and was known in Europe and America. These three 
men were Webster, Clay, and Calhoun. 

Webster was the ablest of the three. For years 
more than 50,000 lawyers had acknowledged him as 
their leader. No man stood higher as a statesman. He 
had entered public life in 181 3 as a member of the 
House of Representatives, had served nineteen years as 
a senator from Massachusetts, and had been Secretary 
of State. His long experience in public affairs, and his 
high reputation as a lawyer, as an orator and as a states- 
man, gave him a wide and strong influence in the thirty 
States. He was especially admired by the higher circles, 
and his position on the slavery question was studied by 
millions. On March 7 he spoke on that subject, and 
threw the whole weight of his influence for the Com- 
promise of 1850. He struck a giant's blow against free- 
dom, but he sincerely believed the Union was in danger, 
and that to preserve it the North must suppress its anti- 
slavery spirit. A few days later he spoke from the 
balcony of the Revere House in Boston, and declared 
he should " take no step backward," and that the people 
of the North " must learn to conquer their prejudices." 

Henry Clay had entered public life about the same 
time as Webster, and had held the same offices. He 
had twice been a candidate for the Presidency, and no 
man then living had such a large and devoted personal 
following. For eight years he had been out of public 
life, but when the legislature of Kentucky unanimously 
elected him to the Senate, he came to Washington strong 



THE COMPROMISE OF 185O. 49 

in patriotism and hope, and fertile in plans to reunite the 
sections. He was in his seventy-third year, and at times 
required the assistance of friends to ascend the steps of 
the Capitol. On January 29 he presented his plan in the 
Senate. A great audience had assembled to hear him. 
Richly dressed ladies, visitors from Baltimore, members 
of Congress, gathered to hear the man they loved. He 
spoke on, hour after hour, for the great Union. His 
tall form, now bent with years, his white hair, his face 
so expressive of every emotion, added pathos to his 
eloquent plea for his country. 

John C. Calhoun began public life about the same 
time as Webster and Clay. He had served as repre- 
sentative and senator in Congress, had been Secretary 
of State, and Vice-President of the United States. His 
was the master mind in the effort at nullification. He said 
in 1848, " If you should ask me the word which I would 
wish engraven on my tombstone, it is ' nullification.' r 
He said slavery was "a good — a positive good." His 
mind had become possessed of one idea, and that was that 
slavery was the necessary bed-rock foundation of Southern 
prosperity. On March 4, 1850, he appeared in the Sen- 
ate. Somber, aged, haggard, gloomy, wrapped in his 
cloak and too ill to speak, he listened as a friend read 
the speech which he had carefully prepared. It declared 
unalterably for slavery and the rights of the States. 

The Compromise of 1850 embraced five distinct laws 
passed by Congress at different times during the year. 
These laws were as follows: 

1. California was admited as a free State. 

2. New Mexico and Utah were organized as Ter- 
ritories without mention of slavery. 

4 



^O FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

3. The western boundary of Texas was established, 
and that State was paid $10,000,000 to give up its claim 
on part of New Mexico. 

4. The slave trade, but not slavery, was abolished in 
the District of Columbia. 

5. A new and more effective fugitive slave law was 
passed. 

Except the fugitive slave law, the Compromise of 
1850 was fair to the North. With that exception, the 
Compromise was accepted in good faith by Whigs and 
Democrats, by North and South. Most of the leaders 
spoke of it as a " final " settlement of the slavery 
question. 

For a time the South was disposed to insist on slavery 
in California. Gold was discovered there in 1848. The 
next year over 80,000 persons went to the El Dorado, and 
by November, 1849, the population was above 100,000. 
Two-thirds of these were Americans, and the rest were 
from Europe, Mexico and South America. Government 
was quickly organized and the next year California 
asked admission as a free State. The only two papers 
there were outspoken against slavery. On September 9, 
1850, Congress admitted California as a free State. 

Both slavery and the slave trade existed in the Dis- 
trict of Columbia in 1789. Twelve years later Congress 
enacted that the laws of Maryland relating to slavery 
should be valid in that part of the District north of the 
Potomac river. During the next fifty years Washington 
became a regular market where slaves were bought and 
sold in large numbers. Gangs of handcuffed slaves 
were frequently seen on the streets. On the payment 
of $400 to the city government, regular traders were 
licensed to buy and sell slaves in the District. The law 



COTTON IS KING. 5 1 

of 1850 abolished this abominable traffic, but did not 
forbid slavery itself. 

To the North, the fugitive slave law was, by far, the 
most offensive of the five acts of the great Compromise. 
This law empowered each of the circuit courts of the 
United States to appoint a commissioner for a given dis- 
trict. This commissioner was a kind of judge to de- 
termine the freedom or slavery of the fugitive. No 
jury was allowed the runaway, nor was he permitted 
to testify for his own liberty. The affidavit of the owner, 
or his agent, was sufficient to return the prisoner into 
bondage. The law even made the commissioner's fee 
higher for adjudging the fugitive to be a slave rather 
than a free man. If the prisoner escaped, the United 
States marshal was liable to the owner for the value of 
the slave. In case of such a rescue, the bystanders were, 
by law, compelled to aid the marshal. 

The effect of this law was immediate. Thousands of 
negroes at the North at once went to Canada. Nu- 
merous arrests were soon made, mobs secured the 
prisoners, and violation of the law was openly advocated. 

NXIII. COTTON IS KING: 1820-1860. 

Several inventions in England had very great effect 
upon cotton culture in the United States. In 1769 
Arkwright made the first spinning jenny, and fourteen 
years later Watt discovered the power of steam to move 
machinery. In 1785 Cartwright invented the power 
loom, and the same year Bell used cylinders for printing 
calicoes. During the next fifteen years the cotton trade 
doubled in England, and the factory system was well 
under way. By 1850 there were 2,650 cotton mills in Eng- 



5 2 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

land, employing nearly half a million persons, and steam 
vessels now carried to these mills yearly over 3,000,000 
bales of cotton from the United States. This rising de- 
mand increased the supply of cotton. Money was plenty 
in the South, and every year saw an increased cotton crop. 

The first cotton mill in the United States was at Bev- 
erly, Massachusetts, in 1787. In i860 there were nearly 
a thousand mills in the North, and a considerable part 
of the Southern crop found its way to New England by 
sea or by rail. Thus the mills of England and New 
England enormously increased the cotton culture of the 
South. 

The first cotton grown in the colonies was produced 
at Jamestown in 1607; but even at the time of .the 
American Revolution the crop was of no importance. 
In 1793 it was raised only along the tide-water region 
from Virginia to Georgia. In that year Whitney's in- 
vention of the cotton gin at once raised the value and 
importance of the crop. This machine quickly and 
cheaply removed the seed from the cotton. It was not 
many years before every planter had his own gin and 
was able to market a far greater supply. The cotton 
belt spread rapidly westward, but even in 182 1 the four 
Atlantic seaboard States produced two-thirds of all that 
was grown. During the next forty years the cotton 
fields spread over the vast and fertile lands of Alabama, 
Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas. 
Louisiana and Mississippi were called " The Cotton 
Garden of the World." Cotton now became the great 
crop of the South, and Ex-Governor Hammond, of South 
Carolina, said " Cotton is King." 

The extension of the cotton belt was accompanied by 
an increasing number of waste cotton fields. No ferti- 



I 

COTTON IS KING. 53 



lizers were used. The field was "cropped" year after 
year, and this " land killing " became the rule. So 
rapidly had this gone on, that in 1850 less than one- 
third of the lands of the two Carolinas and Georgia was 
improved, while in all New England, New York, Penn- 
sylvania and New Jersey over two-thirds of the land 
was under cultivation. 

When a planter needed a new field for cotton, his 
slaves girdled the larger trees on a piece of woodland, 
cut down the smaller ones, cleared away the land, and 
loosely cultivated the soil. Corn was then raised one or 
two years. After this the soil was more thoroughly 
cultivated and thrown into ridges about four feet apart. 
These ridges were then split open and about two 
bushels of seed to the acre were planted in them. The 
planting took place from February to May and was gen- 
erally done bv women and children. When the plant 
was several inches high, the rows were thinned out so 
as to form hills about twelve inches apart. The field 
was then carefully hoed every twenty days, and then 
worked over from three to five times before the picking 
began. The first blooms appeared in May and June, but 
the picking season lasted from August to December. All 
the slaves — men, women and children — picked the 
cotton, and the amount gathered by each slave varied 
from fifty to five hundred pounds per day. The tools 
used on a cotton plantation were of the rudest kind. On 
a South Carolina plantation of 2,700 acres, and employ- 
ing 254 slaves, only $1,262 was invested in tools and 
wagons. The rule was to " wear out " the tools. The 
crop was taken to market in rude wagons or carts or 
by flatboats on the river. The profits of cotton-raising 
were often thirty-five per cent. 



54 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

XXIV. PLANTATION LIFE: 1820-1860. 

The stately home of the master and mistress was the 
center of interest of the whole plantation. Placed on a 
hill in a woodland of noble oaks and hickories, it com- 
manded a view of stream and valley and fields of corn 
and cotton. At a distance, its white columns and Greek 
portico seemed embosomed in a mass of green. Over all 
the landscape was thrown the exquisite charm of the 
long summer of the South. The house was usually a 
story and a half in height, with fine columns and portico 
in front, a wide hallway and large rooms. Names such 
as Mount Vernon, Monticello, Arlington, Ashland, were 
given to these hospitable homes. 

The master was a fine type of manhood. His char- 
acter appeared in two distinct ways, and in both he 
commands respect. First of all he was the owner of 
hundreds and often thousands of acres of land, and had 
the pride of ownership. He was the master of numer- 
ous slaves and daily accustomed to implicit obedience. 
He acquired a fixed habit of command. He was gen- 
erally a public rman and held a local, State or national 
position of trust. His integrity was unquestioned, his 
courage undoubted. But in contrast with these stronger 
traits of his character was his courteous and refined 
bearing to his family and friends. He was by instinct 
and training a gentleman. His chivalry to women, his 
respect to men, his kindness in his home, his unfailing 
and warm hospitality to his friends, his ability in con- 
versation, his dignified yet easy bearing, gave refine- 
ment and courtesy to Southern life and manners. 

The mistress ruled supreme in the home. Loved by 
her husband, adored by her children, and worshiped 



PLANTATION LIFE. 55 

by the servants, her life was one of goodness and devo- 
tion. Often, at night, among the servants, she was car- 
ing for the sick, giving sympathy and advice, and pro- 
viding comforts and necessities. She took pride in the 
flower garden and made it the especial object of her 
care and taste. In the social circle she was the center 
of attention and courtesy. 

The " servants " performed the various kinds of labor 
around the house. They were generally better sheltered, 
clothed and fed than the " field hands." Seeing much 
of a refined home, they caught something of its courtesy 
and manner. One was a coachman, another a gar- 
dener, a carpenter, a cook, or a waiter; but among all 
these, the old "Mammy" held the place of honor and 
affection. She was a kind of mother, nurse and attend- 
ant to the master's children. She had considerable 
authority and might punish, but she usually ruled her 
" chillun " by affectionate tenderness and care. 

The " field hands " performed the harder labor of the 
plantation. They often worked sixteen or eighteen 
hours a day and took a noon rest of an hour. Their 
work was hard and hopeless in the rice, sugar and cotton 
fields. A slave able to pick four or five hundred pounds 
of cotton a day was called a " cotton nigger." Each 
slave in the field was rated as a " full hand," " half hand " 
or " quarter hand," and was expected to perform only 
such given amount of work. 

When the day's labor was ended, the slaves returned 
to the "negro quarters." These were their cabins in a 
motley cluster at some distance from the planter's home. 
These cabins were generally dirty and wretched. In 
Mississippi and Louisiana each one consisted of a single 
room about twenty feet square. The furniture was of 



56 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

the rudest and poorest kind. Each family was allowed 
a " truck patch " to raise vegetables and poultry, and 
with these the slave bought whiskey, tobacco and Sun- 
da v finery. 

The food and clothing of the slaves consisted of the 
barest necessities. Forty-six slave-holders on sugar 
plantations in Louisiana reported that the total cost of 
food and clothing for an able-bodied slave was only $30 
per year. One Louisiana planter paid, in one year, 
$750 for food and hospital service for one hundred 
negroes, or two and one-half cents a day for each slave. 
The regular food allowed w r as four quarts of cornmeal 
and one quart of molasses each week. Besides this, 
vegetables were often given by the master or raised 
by the slave; but meat was not used. Poor as the food 
was, it was enough in quantity ; but the convicts of the 
North had greater variety. If the food was bad, the 
slave's clothes were worse. He was often without hat 
or shoes, and was covered with rags and dirt. He was 
in a double sense the " mud-sill " of Southern society. 

In ten States in 1850 the average size of the plantation 
was 401 acres, and on nearly all the large estates an 
overseer was hired to direct the labor of the " field 
hands." He was paid from $200 to $600 a year, and 
often received much more. He was valued in propor- 
tion to the amount of work which he could get from the 
negroes. He was given despotic power over the life 
and labor of the slave. He was generally ignorant, often 
drunken, and by nature brutal. Though white and 
free, he was held in scorn by the planter and his family. 
He appointed a negro driver, who was held responsible 
for the labor of a small gang of slaves. This driver was 
usually a large, powerful negro and carried a heavy whip.. 



THE SLAVE TRADE. 57 

Flo£2;in£r was common, but was not inflicted in wan- 
ton cruelty. The overseer or driver often said, " If you 
don't work better I will flog you; " but as a rule, blows 
were not given except for idleness or petty offenses. 
Yet if an overseer killed a slave nothing was done, for 
the negro was only property and not a person in the 
sight of the law. 

Slaves were sold like cattle, but care was often taken 
that families should not be separated. " Cash for 
Negroes," " Negroes for Sale," " Negroes Wanted," 
were common advertisements in the papers. Mules and 
negroes were frequently advertised together. By actual 
count, sixty-four newspapers in two weeks, in 1852, of- 
fered for sale 4,100 slaves. One man in Richmond 
advertised his farm and forty slaves that he might raise 
money to become a missionary. In the larger towns 
were slave prisons, where the negroes were locked 
until sold. When brought into the room where the buy- 
ers were, they were placed upon a low platform, and 
their teeth, hair, eyes, limbs, weight and health were 
carefully examined. Before the war General Sherman 
saw in New Orleans young girls thus treated on the 
auction block, and he never forgot the impression then 
made. Lincoln came out of such a room with an oath 
like a prayer to strike a great blow at slavery some 
day. But in general the slaves were indifferent at the 
auction block. They even took pride in their price, 
which rose from $325 in 1840 to $500 in i860. 

XXV. THE SLAVE TRADE: 1808-1860. 

A regular and important trade was carried on between 
the border States of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky and 
Missouri and the Gulf States. In one year alone — 



58 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

1836 — Virginia sold to the South and West 40,000 
slaves, valued at $24,000,000. In the same year Missis- 
sippi bought 250,000 negroes. The slave had a horror of 
being " sold South," and to prevent escapes, strong depots 
were built with locks and bars, and provided with 
thumbscrews for punishment. Gangs of handcuffed 
negroes were often seen on the roads leading South. 

The law of 1808 forbade the importation of slaves 
from any foreign country to the United States under a 
penalty of $20,000 and confiscation of the vessel caught 
in the trade; but the law was notoriously violated. In 
1820 Southern men estimated the number smuggled in 
at from thirteen to fifteen thousand a year. In 1859 
Stephen A. Douglas said he had no doubt that 15,000 
had that year been brought into the United States. 

XXVI. EFFECT OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE 
LAW: 1 850- 1 860. 

Within eight days after its passage the fugitive slave 
law of 1850 was set in operation. While at work in 
New York, James Hamlet, a negro slave from Mary- 
land, was seized, given a hearing before the commis- 
sioner, adjudged to be a slave, handcuffed, forced into a 
carriage and taken to Baltimore, where he was placed 
into a slave pen kept by the notorious Hope Slatter. 

Another case in the same State aroused deep indigna- 
tion. For several years a negro, Jerry McHenrv, had 
lived at Syracuse, New York. On October 1, 1851, he 
was seized, placed and held in a wagon by force and 
taken to the jail. That evening a score of the best citi- 
zens broke open the door of the jail and rescued the 
slave. For several days Mclienry was concealed and 



THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 59 

finally taken to Canada. For this offense eighteen of the 
leading men of Syracuse were arrested and taken before 
the United States court at Albany. On their day of 
hearing one hundred prominent citizens went with them 
to Albany and William H. Seward gave bail for them. 
Nothing further came of the case. 

Six months before the "Jerry rescue " Thomas M. 
Simiris was seized under the law and lodged in the jail 
of the court-house in Boston. To prevent a rescue 
heavy chains were fastened around the jail. The next 
morning the judges of the Supreme Court of Massachu- 
setts had to stoop as they passed under these chains of 
slavery. At five o'clock in the morning the slave was 
placed in a hollow square formed by three hundred 
policemen, marched to the wharf and sent to Georgia. 
While Simms was in jail Wendell Phillips spoke on Bos- 
ton Common against the outrage, and a few days later 
an indignation meeting was held in Faneuil Hall. 

A deputy marshal and three Virginians came to 
Wilkesbarre, Pennsylvania, and found a mulatto em- 
ployed at a hotel. They struck him on the back of the 
head with a club, but he fought them off with terrible 
energy with a handcuff' which they had quickly put on 
his right wrist. With his hand covered with blood he 
rushed into the Susquehanna river, saving, " I will be 
drowned rather than taken alive." While in the water 
up to his neck they repeatedly shot at him and finally 
struck his head, and the blood ran over his face. A 
crowd by this time gathered, the wounded man came 
out of the water, and as he lay dying on the shore one 
of his pursuers remarked, " Dead niggers were not worth 
taking South." Even after this, as he revived, he was 
driven a second time into the river, but the crowd inter- 



60 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

fered and the pursuers fled. Later they were arrested 
for this crime, but Judge Grier of the United States 
Supreme Court discharged the Virginians and said no 
blame attached to them. 

In 1854 a fugitive slave named Glover was arrested at 
Racine, Wisconsin. He was knocked down, put in a 
wagon, driven quickly to Milwaukee and lodged in jail. 
A mass meeting at Racine resolved that Glover should 
have a fair trial, and one hundred citizens went to Mil- 
waukee, where they learned that a meeting of five thou- 
sand people had appointed a vigilance committee to see 
that Glover was given a fair trial. But a mob soon broke 
open the jail and sent the slave to Canada. The rescuers 
were not arrested, and the Supreme Court of the State 
decided that the fugitive slave law was unconstitutional. 

The execution of the fugitive slave law produced a 
long succession of tragedies ; but for every fugitive re- 
turned to the South, hundreds of men at the North 
joined the anti-slavery party. The law was openly defied, 
and such men as Emerson said it would and should be 
violated. Ten northern States soon passed " Personal 
Liberty Laws," which insured a fair trial and prohibited 
the use of the State jails to the fugitives. Only two 
States, California and New Jersey, provided by law for 
the capture and return of slaves, and even there public 
opinion often broke State and National laws and set the 
captive free. 

XXVII. THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD: 

1 840-1 860. 

The " Underground Railroad " was the name given to 
the ways and means by which thousands of slaves es- 
caped to the North. There were three main systems to 



THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD. 6l 

this " Railroad." The first set of lines enabled slaves from 
Missouri to escape northeast across Illinois. The second 
system led north across Ohio and western Pennsylvania. 
The third system went north across eastern Pennsylva- 
nia. Ohio had the greatest number of these lines and 
Oberlin was the most noted station. Twenty lines cross- 
ing that State enabled more negroes to escape than by 
either of the other systems. Many lines converged to 
Philadelphia and thence diverged to the north. One 
line went from Washington to Albany and another from 
Gettysburg to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and then by 
way of Elmira and Niagara Falls to Canada. 

The slaves thus escaping north came mainly from 
Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland and Delaware. 
They ran from the field, kitchen and shop to some for- 
est or swamp. They traveled by night, guided by the 
north star. Often followed by bloodhounds, always in 
danger, trudging on in the darkness, concealed by day 
in boxes or barns or brush, footsore, weary, penniless, 
hungry , stealing food rather than trust other slaves, they 
reached, at last, some station on the underground rail- 
road. Such a station was some farmer's house where 
the fugitive received food, clothing and concealment, and 
was then taken in some box or load of hay or by night 
to the next station. Canada offered the only place of 
true safety, but thousands of negroes settled in the north- 
ern States and were protected by public opinion. 

There is on record a list of three thousand and eleven 
persons who actively aided the negroes to escape along 
the various lines of the underground railroad. Among 
the most eminent were: Salmon P. Chase, who was 
called the " attorney-general for fugitives," and who was 
afterwards in Lincoln's cabinet; Rutherford B. Hayes, 



62 



FREEDOM AND SLAVERY 



later President of the United States; Joshua Giddings, 
for long years in Congress as the enemy of slavery; 
Theodore Parker, the great minister of Boston; Thad- 
deus Stevens, one of the foremost lawyers of Pennsylva- 
nia; Frederick Douglass, the well-known orator. Gerrit 
Smith, of Wilmington, Delaware, aided two thousand 
seven hundred slaves to escape and paid eight thousand 
dollars in fines for violation of the law. Levi Coffin of 
Ohio aided nearly three thousand to escape. Harriet 
Beecher Stowe helped many on their way to freedom. 

XXVIII. UNCLE TOM'S CABIN. 

In 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe published "Uncle 
Tom's Cabin." Within six months more than seventy- 
five thousand copies were sold in the United States and 
twice that number in Great Britain and her colonies. It 
was dramatized the same year, and later was translated 
into twenty-three languages. Extreme abolitionists at 
once proclaimed the work as a true picture of slavery, 
and the slave-holders of the South ridiculed the book as 
the work of a fanatic and a despised abolitionist. The 
book well and truthfully represented the dark and brutal 
side of slavery, but it only half portrayed the daily life 
of most slaves, and it utterly failed to reflect the courtesy 
and charm of Southern society. The work had a wide 
and increasing influence in the North and rapidly filled 
the ranks of a new and powerful anti-slavery party. 

XXIX. THE CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION 

OF 1852. 

The campaign and election of 1852 showed little of 
the great change that was silently but surely going on 



THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA LAW. 63 

at the North. The army of politicians, intent on getting 
office, was not responsive to the new movement for jus- 
tice and freedom. These men controlled both the na- 
tional conventions, which met in June at Baltimore. In 
their platforms both Whigs and Democrats declared for 
the Compromise of 1850, including the fugitive slave 
law. The Democrats declared against all forms of slav- 
ery agitation. The leaders of both parties showed a 
plain and even anxious intention to stop all talk of the 
slavery question. But this was precisely the question 
that was uppermost in men's minds, and when a clear 
statement concerning it was made it received a wide 
audience. Such a statement was put forth in the plat- 
form of the Free Soil convention which met at Pittsburg 
on August 11. This party declared : " Slavery is a sin 
against God, and a crime against man:" " The Fugitive 
Slave Law of 1850 is repugnant to the Constitution;*' 
"Slavery is sectional and freedom national;" "Xo more 
slave States, no more slave Territories, no nationalized 
slavery, and no national legislation for the extradition of 
slaves." In the election that followed, the Democrats 
carried every State except four; but beneath this success 
forces were then operating to form a new and powerful 
political party of freedom, and to place the North and 
South in hostile array. 

XXX. THE KANSAS-NEBRASKA LAW: 1854. 

Within two years after election the politicians resolved 
on a bold move in favor of slavery. On January 23, 
1854, Stephen A. Douglas, of Illinois, introduced in the 
Senate of the United States a bill to organize the Ter- 
ritories of Kansas and Nebraska and to repeal that part 



64 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

of the Missouri Compromise which prohibited slavery 
in the two Territories. It was further provided that the 
Fugitive Slave Law should extend to both Territories, 
and it was the clear intention to make Kansas a slave 
State. 

Far more than any other man, Stephen A. Douglas 
was responsible for this bill. Two years before he was 
a candidate for the Presidency in the Democratic na- 
tional convention, and the glittering prize yet called forth 
all his energy and ambition. He saw that the way to 
the White House was to please the slave power. He 
knew that the South had neither asked nor hoped for 
slave territory north of Missouri, and that the North 
would offer a strong opposition to his plan. A few 
weeks before he took this great step, he was riding with 
Senator Dixon, of Kentucky, and after a long conversa- 
tion about the question, Douglas said, " I will do it." 
On March 3, 1854, he faced an able and determined op- 
position in the Senate. He spoke till daybreak and 
showed great power in the running debate. He was 
below the medium height, with a heavy frame and mas- 
sive head. His physical endurance and force, his clear- 
ness of statement and bold reply won admiration from 
all sides. Seward said, " I have never had so much re- 
spect for the Senator as I have to-night." 

The bill was before Congress four months and at- 
tracted wide attention. It came as a shock to the 
North. The papers then said " Slavery takes the field." 
Public meetings were held in New York, Boston and 
Chicago to protest against the bill. The legislatures of 
five States declared against it. Three thousand clergy- 
men of the various denominations in New England laid 
before the Senate a protest in which they said the repeal 



BORDER WARFARE IN KANSAS. 65 

of the Missouri Compromise was a "great moral wrong 
and a breach of the faith.'' The debate in Congress 
was earnest and often bitter. Mr. Badger, of North 
Carolina, said in the Senate, " Is it not hard, if I should 
choose to emigrate to Kansas, that I should be forbidden 
to take my old mammy along with me?" Ben. Wade, 
of Ohio, replied, " We have not the least objection to the 
Senator's migration to Kansas and taking his old 
mammv along with him. We only insist that he shall 
not be empowered to sell her after taking her there." 

To give a reason for the bill, Douglas invented one 
called the doctrine of "non-intervention" or "squatter 
sovereignty." He wrote in the law this doctrine: "It 
being the true intent and meaning of this act not to leg- 
islate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude 
it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly 
free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in 
their own way, subject only to the Constitution." The 
bill become a law on May 30, 1854, and transferred the 
whole struggle from Congress to Kansas. 

XXXI. BORDER WARFARE IN KANSAS. 

In 1854 s i x northern border counties of Missouri had 
a population of 60,000 white persons and 18,000 slaves. 
The central and eastern part of the State was held by 
slave-holders and a determined effort was now put forth 
to capture Kansas for slavery. In the month following 
the passage of the act hundreds of Missouri farmers 
with their slaves crossed the western boundary of the 
State into Kansas. Lawless and desperate men from 
other southern States also came to the new Territorv. 
But thousands at the North determined to make Kansas 
5 



66 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

a free State. Though Massachusetts was 2,000 miles 
away, yet "Emigrant Aid Societies" were formed and 
many from New England took the long journey to the 
West. John Brown with his four sons went out from 
Ohio with a burning hatred for slavery. In a few 
months an election was held to organize a government 
for Kansas and the slave-holders triumphed. But the 
election was carried by fraud. Out of the six thousand 
votes cast only about eight hundred were by legal set- 
tlers. Bands of men came across from Missouri, and 
after voting returned to that State. The free settlers 
ignored the government on the ground that it had been 
set up by fraud, but it was supported by the federal offi- 
cers at Washington. 

In September, 1857, the slave-holders held a constitu- 
tional convention at Lecompton. and after drawing up a 
constitution for Kansas, submitted it to the people in two 
ways: "For the constitution with slavery,"" " For the 
constitution without slavery." This gave the people no 
chance to vote against the constitution itself. In the elec- 
tion which followed, 6,266 votes were given for the con- 
stitution with slavery and only 567 for it without slavery. 
The free settlers refused to vote at all. The next month 
the free settlers elected a delegate to Congress and a 
legislature for Kansas. This legislature again submit- 
ted the Lecompton constitution to the people in two 
ways: "For the constitution," " Against the constitu- 
tion." Ten thousand two hundred and twenty-six votes 
were given against the constitution and one hundred and 
sixty-two for it. The slave-holders had, in turn, refused 
to vote. 

This double government went on for years and caused 
crime and disorder. Douglas' clear, legal doctrine of 



THE OSTEND MANIFESTO. 67 

non-intervention had arrayed neighbor against neighbor, 
town against town, and had caused innumerable mid- 
night raids for plunder and murder. Squatter sover- 
eignty had produced anarchy. 

XXXII. THE OSTEND MANIFESTO: 1854. 

In 1854 ^ ie South made another effort to get more 
slave territory. Six years before, the government of the 
United States had offered Spain $100,000,000 for Cuba, 
but Spain treated the proposal as an insult. The Ameri- 
can government then instructed its ministers to Spain, 
France and England to meet and consider a plan by 
which the United States might acquire Cuba. The three 
ministers, Soule, Mason and Buchanan, met at Ostend, 
Belgium, in October, 1854. They issued a manifesto de- 
claring for the purchase of Cuba for $120,000,000; " but 
if Spain, dead to the voice of her own interest, and actu- 
ated by stubborn pride and a false sense of honor, should 
refuse to sell Cuba to the United States," then t; we shall 
be justified in wresting it from Spain if we possess the 
power." This manifesto attracted wide attention in Eu- 
rope. The London Times stated: "In this Ostend mani- 
festo a policy is avowed which, if declared by one of the 
great European powers, would set the whole continent in 
a blaze." War was expected at Madrid. Soule, the min- 
ister of the young nation that was rising with so much 
power beyond the ocean, was received at the Spanish 
court with marked attention. Besides representing a 
nation that seemed to adopt the language and attitude of 
a highwayman, he was well qualified to attract notice 
anywhere. He appeared before the king and queen of 
Spain in a costume like that worn by Benjamin Franklin 



68 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

at the court of France. His black velvet suit richly 
embroidered, his black silk stockings, his dress sword, 
his pale complexion set oft' by black eyes and hair, made 
him a marked figure. Part of the President's cabinet 
desired war with Spain. A reckless plan to invade Cuba 
was well known at the South. Senator Slidell of Lou- 
isiana started a movement in the Senate to suspend the 
neutrality laws to aid such a hostile expedition to Cuba. 
The Ostend manifesto was thus the declaration and part 
of a general plan to extend the area of slavery. The 
South hoped that Cuba as well as Kansas might be 
made a slave State. 

XXXIII. THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN 
PARTY: 1854-1856. 

The Kansas and Nebraska act of 1854 was a blow 
strong enough to weld the various anti-slavery elements 
into one compact political party. For four years the 
operation of the Fugitive Slave Law had multiplied the 
enemies of slavery. " Uncle Tom's Cabin " had been 
read with emotion in tens of thousands of homes. The 
breaking up of the Whig party paved the way for a 
new party. The solid front of the Democratic party in 
defense of slavery demanded the formation of a party for 
freedom. 

The earliest move for a new party was at Ripon, Wis- 
consin. In February, 1854, A. E. Bovay called a meet- 
ing at the Congregational church to protest against the 
passage of the Kansas-Nebraska bill. This village- 
political meeting was largely attended by men and 
women and they passed resolutions to form a new party 
if Congress should pass the bill opening Kansas to slav- 



THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 69 

ery. Mr. Bovay then said that the new party would 
probably be called Republican, but he advised delay as 
to the name. On February 26, 1854, ^ ie wrote Horace 
Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune : " Now is the 
time to organize a great party to oppose slavery. . . . 
Your paper is now a power in the land. . . Urge 

all parties to band together under one name, I mean the 
name Republican." On June 24 the Tribune stated that 
the name Republican had been suggested and each week 
this paper then went out to 150,000 persons. 

The Tribune was a kind of political Bible in the North. 
Greeley now wrote Jacob M. Howard of Michigan that 
Wisconsin would adopt the name Republican on July 13, 
and he urged all the anti-slavery men of Michigan to 
choose the same name at their State convention on 
July 6. This convention met at Jackson, " under the 
oaks." Zachariah Chandler and a fugitive slave were 
the principal speakers. The assembly " Resolved, That 
the institution of slavery, except in punishment of crimes, 
is a great moral, social and political evil." The first 
Republican ticket was put forth and the name formally 
adopted. 

Just a week later Wisconsin and Vermont adopted 
the name. On the same day 10,000 people assembled 
at Indianapolis and passed resolutions against the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Law, but the name Republican was not 
chosen. On July 20, 1854, 2 o°° people met at Wor- 
cester, Massachusetts, and declared against slavery and 
in favor of the name Republican. These various State 
conventions resolved against one or more of the follow- 
ing: The Kansas-Nebraska Law, the Fugitive Slave 
Law, and slavery in the District of Columbia. In the 
fall election the new party carried nine States. 



70 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

The Republican party got its members from three 
other parties. The Free Soilers eagerly joined a party 
so like their own. Thousands of Northern Democrats 
came out for freedom. But the main strength came 
from the Whigs. The members of this party were now 
in political confusion. For long years they had relied 
on the rare leadership of Clay, and the still rarer ability 
of Webster, and now both were gone. The part}- was 
hopelessly divided on the slavery question. Most of the 
Northern Whigs believed slavery was wrong, and be- 
sides it was easier to join a new party than to vote with 
old enemies. These three sources furnished to the Re- 
publican party in 1854 lts sudden and rapid growth. 

But at this time the new party lacked leadership. 
Horace Greeley did more than any other man to unite 
the North against the slave power. Salmon P. Chase, 
of Ohio, was an able and aggressive advocate of free- 
dom. Seward was the man best qualified to lead the 
whole party; but he did not join the new movement 
until the next year. In the autumn of 1S55 he spoke out 
at Albany, and his speech was read by half a million 
men. He then said: "We want a bold, out-spoken, 
free-spoken organization. . . . Shall we report our- 
selves to the Whig party? Where is it? . . . The 
Republican organization has laid a new, sound and 
liberal platform, broad enough " for Whigs and Demo- 
crats to stand upon. Seward's influence was powerful 
in strengthening the new part)'. 

XXXIV. THE CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION 

OF 1856. 
In January, 1856, the chairman of the Republican 
State Central Committees of Massachusetts, Vermont, 



CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF 1 856. 71 

Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin invited the Repub- 
licans of the North to meet at Pittsburg on February 22 
to form a national party. On the day appointed, dele- 
gates from twenty-three States listened to speeches by 
Greeley, Chandler, Wilmot, Lovejoy and Giddings. This 
assembly issued an address to the people and appointed a 
time and place for a national convention. 

This convention met at Philadelphia in June. Two 
thousand men represented twenty-two States and Ter- 
ritories. The platform declared, " it is both the right 
and imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Ter- 
ritories those twin relics of barbarism — polygamy and 
slavery." When John C. Fremont was nominated for 
President, the delegates threw hats and handkerchiefs 
into the air, and a large silk flag bearing his name was 
drawn across the stage. 

The Democratic national convention met at Cincinnati 
in June and nominated James Buchanan for President. 
The Richmond Enquirer truly stated of Buchanan: 
" He never gave a vote against the interests of slavery, 
and never uttered a word which could pain the most 
sensitive Southern heart." The platform declared for the 
Compromise of 1850 and for the Kansas-Nebraska Law. 

In the following election the Republicans carried every 
northern State but New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana 
and Illinois; and even in these four States they showed 
great strength. The Democrats carried these States and 
also the solid South, except Maryland, which gave its 
votes to a third party. Fremont got 1.341,264 and 
Buchanan 1,838,169 votes. The Republicans, in the brief 
space of two years, had made sweeping advances, and 
they justly regarded the election of 1856 as a moral 
triumph. 



72 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

XXXV. THE ATTACK ON SUMNER: 1856. 

A month before Fremont was nominated at Phila- 
delphia, Charles Sumner, of Massachusetts, delivered 
in the Senate a speech entitled "The Crime against 
Kansas," in which he made a bitter attack on Senator 
Butler, of South Carolina. Two days later Preston 
Brooks, a representative from South Carolina, and a 
nephew of Butler, came into the Senate Chamber, and 
while Sumner was seated at his desk writing, struck 
him again and again on the head with a heavy gutta- 
percha cane an inch in diameter. Sumner fell back in 
his chair unconscious and with the blood running over 
his face. The House by a vote of 121 to 95 failed to 
expel Brooks — as a two-thirds majority was necessary. 
But he at once resigned his seat, and. after being treated 
as a hero for three weeks in his State, was re-elected to 
Congress. The South either excused his action or ap- 
proved of it, while the North denounced it in unmeasured 
scorn. 

XXXVI. THE DRED SCOTT DECISION: 1S56. 

Two days after the slave power had inaugurated a 
President of the United States, the Supreme Court 
handed down a decision intended to be of far-reaching 
effect. It related to slavery in the Territories. Dred 
Scott was the slave of an army surgeon who resided in 
Missouri. His master had taken him to Illinois and later 
to Minnesota. The laws of Illinois prohibited slavery in 
that State, and Congress in 1820 had prohibited slavery 
in Minnesota. In 1853 Scott began a suit for his liberty 
in the courts of the United States. He claimed his free- 
dom on the "round of residence in a free State and Ter- 



THE DRED SCGTT DECISION". 73 

ritory. The case came up on appeal to the Supreme 
Court and was decided March 6, 1S56. 

The decision consisted of two distinct parts: The first 
held that Scott was not a citizen of Missouri and hence 
not entitled to sue in the courts of the United States; 
that the laws of Illinois did not set him free ; that " the 
right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly 
affirmed in the Constitution ; " that the law passed b}^ 
Congress forbidding slaver)' in Minnesota was unconsti- 
tutional, and that Dred Scott be therefore sent back to 
slaverv. 

The second part of the decision went far beyond the 
question of one man's liberty. It held that Congress 
could no more exclude slaves from the Territories than 
it could shut out any other form of property, and that 
Congress was bound to protect the slave-owner's right 
to his property. At one blow this decision swept away 
every law and established the right to slavery in every 
Territory from the Mississippi to the Pacific ocean. No 
appeal could be taken from this great court except the 
appeal to arms. The slave power now held two of the 
departments of the government and defied the third. 

The judges were influenced by the society in which 
they moved. Five of them were southern men. They 
often heard the debates in Congress. They dined and 
talked with the leaders of the South. There was no 
plot to influence their decision, but the judges soon came 
to believe that by forever settling the slavery question 
they would render the Supreme Court illustrious. 

But there was a general impression at the North that 
the decision was the result of a plot. This idea was best 
expressed by Lincoln: "If we saw a lot of framed tim- 
bers gotten out at different times and places by different 



74 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

workmen — Stephen and Franklin and Roger and 
James, — and if we saw these timbers joined together and 
exactly made the frame of a house, with tenons and mor- 
tises all fitting, what is the conclusion? We find it im- 
possible not to believe that Stephen and Franklin and 
Roger and James all understood one another from the 
beginning, and all worked upon a common plan before 
the first blow was struck." This statement was very 
popular, but it did not portray the real influences back 
of the great decision. 

The opinion of the court filled two hundred and forty 
printed pages and was a cold and pitiless review of the 
bondage and degradation of the negroes. Lincoln well 
expressed its spirit toward the slave: "All the powers 
of earth seem rapidly combining against him. Mammon 
is after him, ambition follows, philosophy and the theol- 
ogy of the day is fast joining the cry. They have him 
in his prison house, they have searched his person and 
left no prying instrument with him. One after another 
they have closed the iron doors upon him, and now they 
have him, as it were, bolted in with a lock of a hundred 
keys, which can never be unlocked without the concur- 
rence of every key, the keys in the hands of a hundred 
different men, and they scattered to a hundred different 
and distant places." 

XXXVII. THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS 

DEBATE: 1858. 

The Dred Scott decision gave an impetus to slavery 
agitation. In the election of 1858 the Republicans every- 
where polled a much heavier vote. Pennsylvania, the 
President's home State, voted strongly against his ad- 



THE LINCOLN AND DOUGLAS DEBATE. 75 

ministration. Illinois, for the first time, was carried by 
the Republicans. In this State the " Lincoln and Doug- 
las Debate " held the attention of the nation for months 
to the single issue of slavery extension. All through the 
North sprang up renewed interest in the slavery ques- 
tion. 

The character and reputation of the men had much to 
do with the importance of the debate between Lincoln 
and Douglas. Although a young man, Douglas had 
been a leading candidate for the Presidency, had been in 
Congress for }^ears, and in the Senate had met no equal 
in debate. His clear and vigorous English, his great 
energy in bold and direct statement and his rapidity and 
fertility of mind were the striking qualities of this natural 
orator and advocate. Long practice had taught him the 
moods and emotions of assemblages, and no man before 
an audience was better qualified to act the part of Marc 
Antony. But his situation demanded all his ability. It 
was well known that the President and his friends de- 
sired to see Douglas defeated. With most men this fact 
would have meant defeat. The Republican party, too, 
was daily increasing in strength. With loss of friends 
and increase of enemies, Douglas now put forth the 
greatest effort of his life. 

Lincoln was now in his fiftieth year. From poverty 
and obscurity he had raised himself to leadership in his 
State. Without the aid of schools he had won high rank 
for his pure and clear English. In a rude society, he had 
all the instincts of a gentleman. His kindness was as 
deeply inwrought in his nature as was his humor. He 
loved the truth for its own sake. He believed in the 
right and that in the end the right would triumph. He 
had an abiding faith in the common people. He said: 



76 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

" You can fool some of the people all the time, and all of 
the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the 
people all the time." This man now stood before au- 
diences where his character was known, and his personal 
worth spoke louder than the forceful and adroit oratory 
of Douglas. 

Lincoln and Douglas were both candidates to repre- 
sent Illinois in the Senate of the United States. In June 
Lincoln said: "A house divided against itself cannot 
stand. I believe this government cannot endure half 
slave and half free. I do not expect the house to fall, 
but I expect it will cease to be divided. It will be- 
come all one thing or all the other." In July Douglas 
attacked this doctrine in a speech at Chicago. After two 
or three speeches by each candidate, Lincoln challenged 
Douglas to a joint debate. Douglas accepted, and seven 
joint discussions were held in different parts of the State. 
The first was at Ottawa, Illinois, August 21, and the last 
at Alton, October 15. They were held in the open air, 
usually in groves, and from five to ten thousand persons 
were present at each discussion. The single issue of 
slavery was presented by each orator. Lincoln asked 
Douglas if a Territory could exclude slavery before such 
Territory became a State. He knew if Douglas should 
say " No," and thus affirm that slavery was fastened 
upon a Territory in spite of its people, that the author 
and champion of " squatter sovereignty " could never be 
Senator from Illinois. He knew if Douglas should say 
" Yes," and thus affirm that a Territory could exclude 
slavery, that this would flatly contradict the Dred Scott 
decision, would offend the entire South, and that the am- 
bitious statesman could never be President of the United 
States. Douglas saw the full force of the question. He 



JOHN brown's raid. 77 

answered that a Territory could not directly exclude 
slavery, but that it could by unfriendly laws so hamper 
the slave-holders' rights that slavery would be practi- 
cally excluded. This halting answer cost Douglas the 
Presidency. Lincoln's question was a wedge between 
the northern and southern Democrats. 

In November following the debate the Republicans 
polled 125,430 and the Democrats 121,609 votes; the 
friends of Buchanan cast 5,071 ballots. Owing to a 
previous apportionment, the Democrats still controlled 
the legislature, and Douglas was soon re-elected to the 
Senate. 

But the moral victory remained with the new party. 
The Illinois campaign had attracted the attention of the 
whole Union. Lincoln's speeches were published in the 
large cities of the North, and formed a kind of platform 
for the Republican party. Longfellow read his speeches 
with approval. Greeley came to his support in the col- 
umns of the Tribune. Colfax and Chase spoke many 
times in Illinois. Douglas, beside meeting Lincoln in 
the seven debates, made a hundred speeches in the State. 
Both North and South knew that the campaign was a 
contest between freedom and slavery, and that freedom 
had won. 

XXXVIII. JOHN BROWN'S RAID: 1859. 

The Illinois campaign of 1858 aroused the conscience 
of the North, but the next year John Brown's raid deeply 
stirred the wrath of the entire South. Brown was a 
religious enthusiast, and his plan was wildly absurd, but 
his raid at Harper's Ferry on October 17 sent an instant 
and profound alarm of a slave insurrection throughout 
the fifteen slave States. 



78 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

John Brown was the sixth in descent from Peter 
Brown, who came over in the Mayflower. He was born 
in Connecticut in 1800, but with his parents came to 
Ohio five years later. After leaving his father's farm 
he tried and failed in the business of a tanner, a surveyor, 
a farmer, and of a dealer in wool. In October, 1855, ' ie 
went to Kansas with his sons, and in the border warfare 
he soon became the terror of the pro-slavery party. 

He was tall and slender and impressed one by his 
serious manner. He was deeply religious, but he was a 
Puritan transplanted to the nineteenth century. He 
read the Old Testament constantly and greatly admired 
Oliver Cromwell. He had a strong will and undoubted 
courage. He believed that "without the shedding of 
blood there is no remission of sins." His education was 
limited, his faith dogmatic. He had a burning hatred 
for slavery, and his religious mind transformed all the 
great influences of freedom into a personal call to duty. 

For twenty years he had pondered over some way to 
free the slaves of the South; but out of his experience in 
Kansas he had formed the plan to seize the arsenal at 
Harper's Ferry and then call all the slaves to freedom. 
He expected that thousands of slaves would join him, 
and that Northern men would flock to his defense. In 
1857 he ordered of a Connecticut firm a thousand pikes, 
which two years later were used by him at Harper's 
Ferry.. In the early part of 1858 he was instructing 
twelve men in Iowa in military drill, and a little later he 
visited Frederick Douglas at his home in Rochester, New 
York, and explained his plan in full. He then went to 
Boston, where he received some encouragement, re- 
lumed to Iowa, collected his band and with them went east 
by way of Chicago and Detroit to Chatham, in Canada. 



JOHN BROWN'S RAID. 79 

Here he outlined his plan to a motley assembly of 
negroes and white persons — men, women and boys — 
and was b}^ them elected commander-in-chief. Disap- 
pointed in his hopes of aid from Boston he was forced 
to put off his attack for nearly a year. But on July 4, 
1859, Brown and his two sons rented a farm five miles 
from Harper's Ferry. Here they quietly collected some 
rifles and tents, and assembled a small body of men and 
boys. All was done so well that no suspicion arose. 

Harper's Ferry had a population of 5,000, and the 
government arsenal usually contained over 100,000 stand 
of arms. At 8:00 P. M., Sunday evening, October 16, 
1859, Brown, with eighteen men, left the farm and 
reached the town three hours later. They at once 
captured the arsenal and posted sentinels. They detained 
the midnight passenger train for three hours. In the 
morning a thousand men in arms attacked Brown and 
his followers and drove them into a brick engine house. 
In answer to telegrams President Buchanan sent eighty 
marines, under Robert E. Lee, from the navy yard at 
Washington, and these arrived at Harper's Ferry on 
Monday evening. The next morning, on Brown's re- 
fusal to surrender, the engine house was stormed and 
Brown, with six others, were made prisoners. Ten of the 
band were killed and five escaped. Brown was soon 
tried and sentenced to death. On the way to the gal- 
lows he kissed a negro child and spoke of the beauty of 
the landscape. In the presence of death he had no fear 
and no regret. 

The wrath of the South rose high at Brown's attempt 
to free the slaves in a slave State. The North was ac- 
cused of inciting and then justifying the attack. The 
Republican party was held responsible for what the 



SO FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

slave-holders thought was a lawless and criminal in- 
vasion of a peaceful State. The raid strengthened the 
enmity between the two sections and hastened the civil 
war. 

XXXIX. THE CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION 

OF i860. 

Six months after John brown's raid the Democratic 
National convention met at Charleston, South Carolina. 
The delegates from the fifteen slave States demanded 
that the platform should clearly set forth the right to 
hold slaves in a Territory and the duty of Congress to 
protect slavery in such Territory. The northern dele- 
gates refused to agree to this imperious demand. On 
such a platform they knew that their candidate, Stephen 
A. Douglas, could never be elected. The convention, by 
a vote of 165 to 138, refused the demand to force slavery 
into the Territories. The delegates from Louisiana, 
Alabama, South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Texas 
and Arkansas at once withdrew from the convention. If 
they could not rule they would ruin the Democratic 
party. The remainder of the convention adjourned to 
meet again in Baltimore on June 18, i860. At the ap- 
pointed time and place the delegates reassembled, and 
seven States — Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, 
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and California — with- 
drew. The remainder of the convention nominated 
Douglas for President. The southern Democrats nom:- 
nated John C. Breckenridge for President. This hope- 
lessly divided the Democratic party and broke the 
strongest bond between the North and South. 

The Republican National convention was held in Chi- 
cago on May 16, i860. Four hundred and sixty-six 



CAMPAIGN AND ELECTION OF i860. 8 1 

delegates assembled in a large square building called the 
Wigwam, and ten thousand spectators watched their 
proceedings. The noted lawyer, William M. Evarts, 
headed the New York delegation. Horace Greeley was 
there as the representative of the distant State of Oregon. 
The interest was eager and even intense. The whole 
assembly was confident that the next President of the 
United States would there be nominated. Three candi- 
dates — Lincoln, Chase and Seward — were before the 
convention. On the first ballot Lincoln received 102 and 
Seward 175 votes. On the third ballot Lincoln received 
231 and Seward 180 votes. Only three more would 
give Lincoln a majority of the convention. A hush fell 
upon the great assembly. Just then Ohio gave four 
more votes to Lincoln and assured his nomination. En- 
thusiasm now broke forth, and a cannon placed on the 
roof was fired off At the close of the third ballot Lin- 
coln received 364 votes, and stood forth the standard- 
bearer of a young, vigorous, determined and widely- 
extended political party. 

A Constitutional Union party met in convention at 
Baltimore and nominated John Bell, of Tennessee, for 
President. It opposed both the Democrats and Repub- 
licans, and pledged a firm allegiance to " the Constitution 
of the country, the union of the States, and the enforce- 
ment of the laws." 

Four candidates were now before the public. Lincoln 
stood pledged against the extension of slavery. Breck- 
inridge was pledged to extend it bylaw. Douglas aimed 
to evade the issue by his doctrine of " squatter sover- 
eignty." Bell hoped to avoid the issue by ignoring it. 

Enthusiasm and deep earnestness marked the cam- 
paign. Lincoln took almost no part in it, but he closely 



82 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

observed the great movement that was to place him at 
the head of the Nation. Seward's fame rilled the North 
as he spoke in various places from New York to Min- 
nesota. Long torchlight processions, often numbering 
twenty thousand men, appeared for the first time. Low- 
ell, Whittier, Holmes, William Cullen Bryant and George 
W. Curtis rendered active aid to the Republican party. 
The election on November 6, i860, showed the wide 
separation of the North and the South. Lincoln carried 
every northern State except New Jersey, and even in 
this State he received four of the seven electoral votes. 
Breckinridge carried every southern State except Vir- 
ginia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Missouri, but even here 
three of these States voted for Bell, who was a slave- 
holder, and Missouri voted for Douglas, whose ability in 
Congress had ever been on the side of slavery. Lincoln 
received 1,866,452; Douglas, 1,375,157; Breckinridge, 
8 47>953> and Bell > 59°> 6 3 l votes - 

XL. SECESSION: 1860-61. 

Since 1850 the leading men of the South had deter- 
mined on secession if they could not maintain with the 
North equal power in the Union. It seemed to them 
that the North had gained in every contest over slavery. 
In 1S20 their right to hold slaves had been abolished 
over a vast region north and west of Missouri. They 
had brought on the Mexican war to extend slavery, and 
all but Texas was practically free territory. They had 
forced through Congress a fugitive slave law, and it 
could not be enforced. They had secured the law to 
establish slavery in Kansas, and yet free men of the 
North had actual possession of the Territory. The} 



SECESSION. S3 

had gained from the Supreme Court a decision which 
might serve as a rock against the waves of public opin- 
ion, and it had been submerged. Every victory had 
turned to defeat. When Lincoln was elected they re- 
solved on independence from a power they could not 
control. 

For years the idea of a great slave republic had been 
rising in the Southern mind. By the war with Mexico 
the leaders had hoped to carry slavery clear through to 
the Pacific. Later on they intended to conquer Mexico, 
and spread slavery throughout its whole extent. They 
stood ready at any time to declare war against Spain, 
and take Cuba by force. With such vantage ground it 
would be easy to gain and hold northern South America. 
Around the Gulf of Mexico would then stand a huge 
slave empire, able to withstand the North, and secure 
the existence of slavery for the next century. 

The South resolved on secession if Lincoln should be 
elected. The legislature of South Carolina remained in 
session till after November 6 to hear the result of the 
election. When the news was flashed over the wires 
that Lincoln would be the next President, the legislature 
voted money for arms and called a State convention. 
On December 18, i860, this body met in Charleston 
amid rejoicing and deep feeling. Many gray-haired men 
were present. They soon passed the Ordinance of 
Secession: "We, the people of the State of South Car- 
olina, in convention assembled, do declare and ordain 
, . . that the union now subsisting between South 
Carolina and other States under the name of ' The 
United States of America' is hereby dissolved." As 
the last word was read bv an a^ed slave-holder, the con- 
vention broke into cheers, the crowd outside sent up a 



84 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

great shout, church bells were rung, and a cannon sent 
forth its ominous note. 

In the evening the members of the convention entered 
Institute Hall in solemn procession for the purpose of 
formally signing the Ordinance of Secession. The docu- 
ment was first read, and then a white-haired minister 
asked God's blessing on the great step taken. It took 
two hours for all the members to sign the act of separa- 
tion, and many recalled the famous scene of 1776 in 
Independence Hall. Crowds of ladies in the galleries 
graced the occasion. Military companies marched 
through the streets, huge bonfires lighted up many 
squares, and fireworks flashed and glittered in the dark- 
ness. 

South Carolina at once took measures to show that 
she was a free and independent nation. The governor 
organized a cabinet, a new flag was adopted, and the 
Charleston papers published news from the United States 
under the heading "Foreign News." Commissioners 
were soon sent to Washington to secure from the gov- 
ernment of the United States the surrender of all forts 
and public buildings in the State of South Carolina. 

On January 5, 1861, the Senators from Mississippi, 
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas met in 
Washington and resolved on secession, and by Febru- 
ary 1 every one of these six States had formally with- 
drawn from the Union. As each State seceded, its 
Senators and Representatives in Congress left Washing- 
ton for the South. As a rule they made no speeches 
and presented no list of grievances in breaking the unity 
and grandeur of the nation. 



DECISION AT THE SOUTH. 85 

XLI. THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF 
AMERICA: 1861. 

On February 4 forty-two delegates, representing 
South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisi- 
ana and Florida, met in the State House at Montgomery, 
Alabama, adopted a temporary government, and elected 
Jefferson Davis President and Alexander H. Stephens 
Vice-President. These officers were to serve until a 
permanent constitution was adopted. On February 18 
President Davis was inaugurated in the presence of a 
large assemblage. He then said: " Our new govern- 
ment is founded upon . . the great truth that the 
negro is not equal to the white man." On March ir a 
permanent constitution was adopted by seven States. 

XLII. THE PEACE CONGRESS: 1861. 
But a strong effort was now made to save the great 
Union. A Peace Congress of one hundred and thirty- 
three commissioners from twenty-one States met in 
Washington on February 4 and remained in session for 
twenty-three days. It advocated "the extension of the 
Missouri compromise line to the Pacific," and payment 
from the National " Treasury for all fugitive slaves res- 
cued after arrest." 

XLIII. DECISION AT THE SOUTH. 

While the North waited and did nothing, all at the 
South was decision and activity. As each State seceded 
it took possession of the post-offices, custom-houses and 
forts within its borders. Arms were purchased and large 
forces of men were instructed in military drill. Prom- 
inent men in the army, navy and civil service of the 
United States were constantly resigning to join the South. 



86 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

XLIV. DIVISION AT THE NORTH. 

President Buchanan declared that secession was ille- 
gal, but that the government of the United States had no 
power to force a State back into the Union. To destroy 
the Union was illegal, but to preserve it was unconstitu- 
tional. The President used his position to impress upon 
the country that the North was wrong and that the 
South was right. The New York Tribune stated: "If 
the cotton States shall decide that they can do better out 
of the Union than in it, we insist on lettino; them 20 in 
peace." Other leading papers at the North declared for 
some peaceful settlement of all questions in dispute. On 
January 14, 1861, the legislature of Ohio asked the other 
States to repeal their personal liberty laws, and in three 
months Rhode Island, Vermont and Massachusetts had 
complied with the request. The North quailed in the 
presence of actual disunion. 

NLV. LINCOLN'S JOURNEY TO WASHING- 
TON: 1861. 

In the midst of this uncertainty all eyes turned to the 
coming President. Early on Monday morning, Febru- 
ary 11, 1861, Lincoln went from his home to the small 
station in Springfield to take the train for the East. 
More than a thousand of his friends and neighbors had 
gathered there for a last farewell. In silent emotion he 
grasped the hands of those who had known and believed 
in him. His progress eastward was one continued ova- 
tion. At Indianapolis thirty-three cannon shots greeted 
the arrival of his train. Governor Morton met him at 
the station in a carriage drawn by four white horses, 
and they drove through the city followed by the legisla- 



Lincoln's inauguration. 87 

ture and other State officers. In Cincinnati he met an 
immense crowd, and then went northeast to Columbus, 
where he addressed the legislature in the capitol. From 
this city he bore east to Pittsburg, and then northwest to 
Cleveland. Going east through Buffalo to Albany, he 
was amazed at the vast crowds that met him in the 
Empire State. At Troy he spoke to fifteen thousand 
people, and a quarter of a million persons saw him enter 
the streets of New York. In Philadelphia the vast as- 
semblage surpassed any that he had seen. On Febru- 
ary 22 he spoke in Independence Hall. Up to this time 
his journey had been determined by the invitations of 
cities and legislatures. But now no word of hospitality 
came from Maryland, through which he must pass. On 
the contrary, he received word from many sources that 
his life would be in danger in Baltimore. He at once 
took a night train, and in disguise passed through the 
hostile State and appeared in Washington the next 
morn in £. 

XLVI. LINCOLN'S INAUGURATION: 
MARCH 4, 1861. 

On March 4 he was inaugurated, and great care was 
taken for his protection. General Scott placed the whole 
city under military guard, and received reports from his 
troops every fifteen minutes. The line of procession was 
along Pennsylvania avenue from the White House to the 
Capitol. Cavalry guarded all the side streets, and sharp- 
shooters lined the roofs along Pennsylvania avenue, with 
instructions to watch the windows on the opposite side 
of the street. Dense masses of mounted soldiers guarded 
Lincoln in the center of the street. The same care was 
taken on his return to the White House. 



88 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

On his way from Springfield to Washington Lincoln 
had carefully avoided any declaration of his policy. He 
wished first of all to be peacefully inaugurated. He said: 
" Let us do one thing at a time, and the big things first." 
But when he stood at the east front of the Capitol he 
knew that responsibility had come and that his words 
would be flashed to every part of the nation. He de- 
clared he would maintain the Union, and he threw the 
whole responsibility for war upon the South. 

"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, 
and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. 
The government will not assail you. You can have no 
conflict without yourselves being the aggressors. You 
can have no oath registered in Heaven to destroy the 
government, while I shall have the most solemn one to 
preserve, protect and defend it. I am loath to close. We 
are not enemies, but friends. Though passion may have 
strained, it must not break our bonds of affection." 

XL VII. THE NORTH AND SOUTH COM- 
PARED: i860. 

At last the North faced the South with a practical 
declaration of war. The long conflict of ideas was about 
to end and the conflict of force to begin. It will throw 
light on the great civil war which followed to compare 
the resources of the two sections, and for this purpose 
the census of i860 is invaluable. For greater clearness, 
round numbers will be given, and in each comparison 
the seventeen free States will be contrasted with the 
eleven slave States which seceded. 

From Maine to Kansas, and from New Jersey to Min- 
nesota, seventeen free States formed a united and pow- 



NORTH AND SOUTH COMPARED. 89 

erful nation. It had an area of over 600,000 square 
miles and a population of 19,000,000. The eleven "Con- 
federate States of America," extending from Virginia 
to Texas, formed another thoroughly compact nation, 
with an area of more than 700,000 square miles, and a 
population of 9,000,000. The war, in reality, was be- 
tween two distinct and independent nations. The four 
slave States — Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky and Mis- 
souri — furnished men and supplies to both sides. The 
distant and thinly inhabited States of California and 
Oregon gave little aid to the North. 

The North had great resources in its varied indus- 
tries, while the South relied mainly on the one occupa- 
tion of farming. The seventeen free States had over 
100,000 manufacturing establishments worth more than 
$800,000,000, and employing more than 1,000,000 per- 
sons; the eleven slave States had 20,000 manufacturing 
establishments of all kinds, worth less than $100,000, 
and employing 110,000 persons. The North had twice 
as many miles of railways, and five times the ocean 
tonnage. Even in agriculture the Northern farmers 
owned $4,800,000,000 worth of farm lands, while the 
Southern planter had only $1,800,000,000 in such prop- 
erty. 

The North led in intellectual as well as in material re- 
sources. It had 1,200 printing establishments to 150 in 
the South. North of Mason and Dixon's line and the 
Ohio river there were 250 dailies and 1,800 weekly 
newspapers; while in the eleven slave States there were 
only 66 dailies and 600 weekly newspapers. The North 
had over 6,coo public libraries, circulating more than 
5,000,000 volumes, while the South had half as many 
libraries, sending out less than 2,000,000 volumes. Two 



(,0 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

million seven hundred thousand pupils attended the pub- 
lic schools in the North to 580,00 in the South. From 
1790 to 1849 the North took out 16,514 patents for in- 
ventions, while the South had only 2,202 such patents. 

XL VIII. FORT SUMTER: APRIL 12, 1861. 

As fast as the States seceded they took possession of the 
forts and arsenals within their borders, and in the early 
months of 1861 there remained to tha Union only three 
forts: Fortress Monroe, in Virginia; Fort Sumter, in 
South Carolina, and the defenses at Key West, Florida. 
In January President Buchanan ordered the vessel, the 
Star of the West, to take supplies to Fort Sumter. As 
this vessel was entering the harbor on January 9, 1861, 
she was fired on by a Confederate battery and compelled 
to return to New York. This was the first overt act of 
war: but President Buchanan did nothing. 

In April the Confederates resolved to capture Fort 
Sumter. This fort stood in the center of the harbor, 
commanding its entrance, and contained forty-eight can- 
nons, hundreds of barrels of powder and many small 
arms. It was held by Major Anderson and 127 men. 
The Confederates erected strong land batteries within 
reach of the fort. On Major Anderson's refusal to sur- 
render the place they opened fire at 4:30 A. M., April 
12, 1861. Nineteen batteries hurled shot and shell 
against the solid walls. The attack was begun on Fri- 
day morning and continued for thirty-four hours. On 
Saturday, at 11:00 A. M., the fort was on fire, and 
through the dense masses of black smoke the flames 
shot upward. A white flag soon rose above the walls, 
and the fort was formally surrendered. Major Anderson 
and his men were allowed to leave for the North. 



"A VISION OF THE WAR. 91 

The attack on Fort Sumter marked an epoch. It 
ended a long conflict of ideas and ushered in a conflict 
of force. It began the final struggle between freedom 
and slavery. The lurid and sinister glare from those 
guns on that eventful Friday morning, and the roar from 
their iron throats, should have sent a thrill of hope and 
joy to 4,000,000 slaves. 

XLIX. OPENING OF THE WAR. 

The news of the surrender was flashed over the Union. 
On April 15 Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 troops to 
put down the rebellion. Governors of States at once 
loyally responded, and in forty-eight hours a Massachu- 
setts regiment was on board a train bound for Washing- 
ton. The stars and stripes decorated the homes of 
millions at the North. Patriotic speeches were made 
from the platform and pulpit. The newspapers were 
rilled with the news of preparation. Cannons were be- 
ing cast in the great foundries, and new foundries were 
being built. 

L. "A VISION OF THE WAR." 

" The past, as it were, rises before me like a dream. 
Again we are in the great struggle for national life. We 
hear the sound of preparation — the music of the boister- 
ous drums — the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see 
thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of ora- 
tors; we see the pale cheeks of women, and the flushed 
faces of men; and in those assemblages we see all the 
dead whose dust we have covered with flowers. We 
lose sight of them no more. We are with them when 



92 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

they enlist in the great army of freedom. We see them 
part with those they love. Some are walking for the 
last time in quiet, woody places with the maidens they 
adore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows 
of eternal love as they lingeringly part forever. Others 
are bending over cradles kissing babes that are asleep. 
Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some are 
parting with mothers, who hold them and press them to 
their .hearts again and again, and say nothing; and some 
are talking with wives, and endeavoring with brave 
words spoken in the old tones to drive away the awful 
fear. We see them part. We see the wife standing in 
the door with the babe in her arms — standing in the sun- 
light sobbing — at the turn of the road a hand waves — 
she answers by holding high in her loving hands the 
child. He is gone, and forever. 

"We see them all as they march proudly away under 
the flaunting flags, keeping time to the wild, grand music 
of war — marching down the streets of the great cities — 
through the towns and across the prairies — down to the 
fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right. 

" We go with them, one and all. We are by their 
side on all the gory fields, in all the hospitals of pain — 
on all the weary marches. We stand guard with them 
in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are 
with them in ravines running with blood — in the fur- 
rows of old fields. We are with them between contend- 
ing hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst, the life ebbing 
slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them 
pierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches of 
forts, and in the whirlwind of the charge, where men 
become iron, with nerves of steel. 



"A VISION OF THE WAR." 93 

" We are with them in the prisons of hatred and fam- 
ine, but human speech can never tell what they endured. 

"We are at home when the news comes that they are 
dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her sorrow. 
We see the silvered head of the old man bowed with 
the last grief. 

" The past rises before us, and we see four millions of 
human beings governed by the lash — we see them 
bound hand. and foot — we hear the strokes of cruel 
whips — we see the hounds tracking women through 
tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts 
of mothers. Cruelty unspeakable! Outrage infinite! 

"Four million bodies in chains — four million souls in 
fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother, father 
and child trampled beneath the brutal feet of might. 
And all this was done under our own beautiful banner 
of the free. 

"The past rises before us. We hear the roar and 
shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall.. 
There heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see 
men and women and children. The wand of progress 
touches the auction block, the slave-pen and the whip- 
ping-post, and we see homes and firesides, and school- 
houses and books, and where all was want and crime, 
and cruelty and fear, we see the faces of the free. 

"These heroes are dead. They died for liberty — 
they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in the 
land they made free, under the flag they rendered stain- 
less, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the tear- 
ful willows, the embracing vines. They sleep beneath 
the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of sunshine or 
storm, each in the windowless palace of rest. Earth may 
run red with other wars — they are at peace. In the 



94 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found the 
serenity of death. I have one sentiment for the soldiers 
living and dead — cheers for the living and tears for the 
dead." 

LI. THE AREA OF THE WAR. 

Seventeen free States now resolutely determined to 
maintain the Union and to put down the rebellion in the 
eleven slave States. The war spread over an area of 
800,000 square miles. It lasted four years and held the 
attention of the civilized world. Its two great issues 
were — the liberty of the slaves and the existence of re- 
publican government. 

LII. THE UNION AND CONFEDERATE 
ARMiES. 

During the war the North enrolled in its armies 
2,850,000 and the South 1, 100,000 soldiers. Of these 
4,000,000 men, less than one-half were in actual service 
at one time. The war opened with a Union army of 
16,000, and the Confederacy had not a single soldier. At 
the close of the war the North had enrolled 1,000,516 
soldiers, and the South only 175,000. 

LIH. BATTLES AND LOSS OF LIFE. 

The total number of engagements of all kinds in the 
four years was 2,265. There were 330 battles where 
the Union loss in killed, wounded and missing was above 
too. Seven hundred thousand soldiers died for the 
Union or for the Confederacy. 



FREEDOM OF THE SLAVES. 95 

LIV. COST OF THE WAR. 

When Fort Sumter was surrendered the debt of the 
United States was about $80,000,000. When Lee sur- 
rendered it was $2,800,000,000. During the last three 
years of the war the Federal government collected 
$780,000,000 in taxes, sold $1,100,000,000 worth of 
bonds, and issued in the form of notes and paper money, 
$1,000,000,000. But the total cost of the civil war will 
not be known until the Confederate outlay can be given, 
the destruction of property on both sides ascertained, 
and the loss in labor of 4,000,000 soldiers is estimated 
with some accuracy. 

LV. THE FREEDOM OF THE SLAVES. 

At first the war was to save the Union and not to 
free the slaves. In February, 1861, the House of Repre- 
sentatives unanimously passed a resolution declaring that 
Congress had no power to touch slavery in the slave 
States. When Lincoln was first inaugurated he ex- 
pressly disclaimed any intention to interfere with slavery 
where it then existed. The North would not then sup- 
port an abolition war. The two giant forces of freedom 
and of slavery had come into deadly conflict, and one was 
trying to maintain a legal union with its natural enemy. 

But as the great war went on, its real cause thrust itself 
into all the military operations. The slave might be a 
laborer or soldier in the Union army. He was such in 
the Confederate army. He labored on the plantation, 
while his master, on the battle field, fought to make 
slavery eternal. The patient bondman faithfully and 
lovingly cared for the wife and children of the man who 
fought to destroy the sacredness and beauty of the lowly 
home. It was said that a single firebrand thrown into a 



9^ FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

Southern home would have disbanded the Confederate 
armies ; and not one was thrown. This speaks eloquently 
for master and slave, but it can never justify a system 
that produced a constant succession of outrages. By 
their devotion the slaves defended slavery. They fur- 
nished a large army of laborers, who released an equal 
number of white men for active military operations. 

As the war went on the North was compelled to rec- 
ognize slavery as a fact of great military importance. 
In July, 1862, Congress confiscated the slaves of all per- 
sons in rebellion against the United States. This law 
alone would have freed nearly half of the slaves. At 
once the cry of an "Abolition War" went up at the 
North, and Lincoln appealed to the public in a remark- 
able letter to Greeley. " If I could save the Union with- 
out freeing any slave, I would do it; if I could save it by 
freeing ail the slaves, I would do it; and if I could d.3 it 
by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would do it." 
Lincoln seems to have had two distinct policies at this 
time. Deep in his heart lay an abiding love of justice, 
and he wished that this great war should not end with- 
out removing a great wrong. Years before he had seen 
a young girl sold at auction in New Orleans, and moved 
by strong emotion, he then said: " If I ever get a chance 
to hit slavery, Til hit it hard." 

He was now in a position to strike slavery with all 
the energy of the North, and to put the South in defense 
of the wrong before the civilized world. 

But he knew that a war for abolition alone would not 
be supported. Hence he emphasized the military ne- 
cessity of emancipation. He sincerely belie vetl in that 
necessity, but an almost divine justice and compassion 
controlled his action. 



THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. 97 

In September, 1862, Lincoln thought the time for ac- 
tion had come. The war had been in progress a year 
and a half, and the policy of the Administration would 
soon be considered in the November elections. A great 
battle had just driven a southern army from northern soil. 
Lincoln determined to let the North choose between 
freedom and slavery. 

On September 22, 1862, he issued a proclamation de- 
claring " That on the first day of January, in the year 
of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty- 
three, all persons held as slaves within any State, or 
designated part of a State, the people whereof shall then 
be in rebellion against the United States, shall be then, 
thenceforward, and forever free." On the day ap- 
pointed he issued the famous emancipation proclamation 
which made " Liberty and Union, one and inseparable." 

From this time on the Union soldiers were fighting to 
destroy slavery as well as to save the Union. Every 
battle was now a blow for freedom and every death a 
sacrifice, nobly rendered, to make the bondman free. 
At the close of the war the victorious North forced into 
the Constitution the thirteenth amendment: " Neither 
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punish- 
ment for crimes whereof the party shall have been duly 
convicted, shall exist in the United States or any place 
subject to their jurisdiction." 

LVI. THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. 

When the war began the North had only thirteen ves- 
sels ready for immediate service. The remaining sev- 
enty-seven were either disabled or thousands of miles 
away on distant seas. 



98 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

The South had not a single sailor or vessel of war. 
It had only three rolling mills, no body of skilled mechan- 
ics, and no great gun factories or machine shops. But 
a single cotton crop might purchase a navy, and England 
would quickly buy the cotton and gladly sell the ships, 
and with these ships the South might sweep the north- 
ern commerce from the ocean. 

It was a clear military necessity for the North to have 
at least six hundred vessels to blockade the entire Con- 
federacy and to capture the forts and ports along its 
1,900 miles of coast. 

To effect this great object, the government at once 
began to add to the navy in rive ways. 

1. Everything afloat that could be used in the service 
was bought. By July I, 1861, twelve steamers were 
added to the service. 

2. Contracts were at once made with private parties 
to construct small but heavily-armored screw gunboats. 
Some of these were afloat in four months, and were 
called " ninety-day gunboats." 

3. The government began the construction of sloops- 
of-war, and at the close of 1861 fourteen were in the 
service. 

4. The government built very many paddle-wheel 
steamers for use on the rivers and in shallow channels. 

5. The government constructed ironclad war vessels. 
As fast as these vessels were made they were sent 

along the coast to stop all trade with the South. Old 
vessels loaded with stone were sunk at the narrowest 
entrances to ports. Gunboats were stationed in or near 
the harbor, ready to capture or destroy any vessel at- 
tempting to pass. 



THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. 99 

This blockade was very effective. During the year 
before the war the South had sent 4,500,000 bales of 
cotton to Europe; but during the next year not over 
50,000 bales passed the blockade. The price of cotton 
fell to eight cents a pound in the South and rose to fifty 
cents a pound in England. The prices of manufactured 
articles of all kinds rapidly rose in the Confederacy. 
During the war the navy captured over 1,100 prizes, 
worth $31,000,000, but its great work lay in destining 
the foreign trade of the South. 

A cargo of manufactured articles from England soon 
commanded an extraordinary amount of cotton in the 
South and offered the strongest inducement to break the 
blockade. But as vessels could not enter the southern 
ports direct from Europe, it was necessary to have depots 
of supplies near the South. Four places — Nassau, Ber- 
muda, Havana and Matamoras — served as stations for 
the trade. The chief southern ports were Savannah, 
Charleston and Wilmington. A short run of five or six 
hundred miles connected these cities with Nassau. 

To carry on this short line trade it became necessary 
to have special vessels, known as blockade-runners. 
These were long, sharp-pointed, narrow side-wheel 
steamers. The hulls were painted in a dull gray color 
and rose but a few feet above the water. Anthracite 
coal was used to avoid much smoke, and the smoke- 
stacks rose but little above the decks. The vessels were 
constructed for speed, invisibility and stowage. On a 
dark ni^ht and with a hiirh tide these vessels would run 
past the blockade, change cargoes, return to Nassau and 
reship the cotton to Europe. In four years 1,500 block- 
ade runners were made prizes or sunk and the trade was 
gradually diminished. 

L, rfC. 



IOO FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

LVII. ENGLAND AND THE CIVIL WAR. 

A powerful party in England early showed sympathy 
for the South. The strength of this party was the aris- 
tocracy, and its leader was the Prime Minister, Lord 
John Russell. During the early part of the war nearly 
all the great newspapers, the leading magazines, and the 
interviews and speeches of prominent men openly ex- 
pressed sympathy for the South, and declared that the 
Union was destroyed. Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton pre- 
dicted that four republics would spring forth from the 
ruins of the Union. Lord John Russell said, " The strug- 
gle is on the one side for empire, and on the other for 
power." Edward A. Freeman, the distinguished his- 
torian, had printed on the title page of one of his histories 
his belief in the " disruption of the United States." Glad- 
stone said, " The Federal government can never succeed 
in putting down the rebellion." 

Out of this public sentiment grew the hostile action of 
the English government. In February Lord John Rus- 
sell wrote to Lord Lyons in Washington that the United 
States had "sought for quarrels " with England, but that 
" British forbearance springs from the consciousness of 
strength and not from the timidity of weakness." In 
March a motion to recognize the independence of the 
Confederacy was made in Parliament. On May 6 Lord 
John Russell said in the House of Commons that the 
" Southern Confederacy of America . . . must be 
treated as a belligerent." On May 13 Charles Francis 
Adams, the United States minister to England, landed at 
Liverpool ; and on the very same day, as if to show dis- 
courtesy, England's proclamation of neutrality was issued. 
In July Lord John Russell, through Lord Lyons at 



THE NAVY OF THE UNITED STATES. IOT 

Washington, directed Mr. Bunch, a British consul at 
Charleston, to open negotiations with the Confederate 
government. The government at Washington demanded 
the recall of Mr. Bunch for this hostile movement, but 
England assumed full responsibility for the act and re- 
fused the demand. 

In the autumn of 1861 the Confederate government 
appointed James Murray Mason, of Virginia, and John 
Slidell, of Louisiana, ministers respectively to England 
and France. These officers were authorized to secure 
the full recognition of the Confederacy, to get loans and 
military supplies for the South, to make treaties, and to 
defeat the Union diplomacy. On the dark and stormy 
night of October 12 the ministers with their two secre- 
taries left Charleston for Nassau. From thence they 
went to Cardenas, Cuba, and then overland to Havana. 
From this neutral port they took passage on the Trent, 
a British mail steamer and a neutral vessel bound for a 
neutral port. They were clearly beyond the reach of 
legal capture. But on November 8 Captain Wilkes, of 
the United States man-of-war San Jacinto, captured the 
two ministers and their secretaries and took them as 
prisoners to Fort Warren, Boston. 

The whole North rejoiced at the capture. A banquet 
in honor of Captain Wilkes was given in Boston. On 
December 2 Congress gave him a vote of thanks. But 
Lincoln said, " I fear the traitors will prove to be white 
elephants. We must stick to American principles con- 
cerning the rights of neutrals. We fought Great Brit- 
ain for insisting, by theory and practice, on the right to 
do precisely what Captain Wilkes has done." 

Two days after the news of the capture was received 
the English cabinet met and demanded the immediate 



102 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

release of the four men, and that a suitable apology 
should be rendered to the English government. Troops 
and supplies were at once ordered to Canada to enforce 
the demand. This was that " British forbearance that 
springs from the consciousness of strength/' rather than 
a deliberate plan to destroy the great nation that for 
three-fourths of a century had risen with such power 
and splendor and that was now struggling for its very 
life. 

The prisoners were released and Gladstone taunted 
the North for its wavering policy. Unfortunately, Sew- 
ard returned the prisoners on the ground that they had 
not been formally adjudged in a prize court. This was 
nothing but the old right of search where a " British 
man-of-war had been made a floating judgment seat six 
thousand times." The plain fact was that the Trent was 
a neutral vessel, from a neutral port to a neutral port, 
and was, by international law, a part of the territory of 
the nation to which she belonged. 

But the English government permitted on its own soil 
open hostility to the Union. It allowed the Confederacy 
to establish on English soil an active naval department. 
There its vessels were built, repaired, armed, commis- 
sioned and sent forth to destroy the merchant vessels of 
the nation with which England was at peace. Years 
later England paid $15,500,000 in gold for her hostility 
to a friendly nation, but the remembrance of that hos- 
tility will never be effaced. 

There were two Englands. The landed aristocracy 
and their followers had no sympathy with republican 
governments; but the common people of England were 
the natural allies of the North, and their noblest repre- 
sentative was John Bright. This eloquent and able 



THE SOUTH IN 1865. IO3 

statesman deserves all honor in America. In the dark- 
est hour of the Union he foretold its final triumph, ami 
eloquently portrayed its restoration over a vast domain 
with "one people and one language and one law and one 
faith, and over all that wide continent the homes of free- 
dom." The civil war produced the " Cotton Famine " 
in England, and 500,000 operatives, thrown out of em- 
ployment, were, at one time, receiving poor relief. This 
vast industrial army, under the stress of poverty, denied 
its sympathy to a slave republic. The common people 
of England felt that the North was fighting for free 
labor. 

LVni. THE SOUTH IN 1865. 

At the opening of 1865 the situation at the South was 
desperate. The Union navy had utterly destroyed her 
foreign trade, and stood guard at every sea port. Sheri- 
dan, for the last time, was laying waste the beautiful 
valley of the Shenandoah. Sherman had burned the 
factories and machine shops of the manufacturing center 
of the South, had made a wide swath of desolation to 
the sea, and now, destroying as he advanced, was march- 
ing North to join Grant at Richmond. Grant's army 
presented a solid front of iron and steel to Lee's small 
army behind the defenses around Richmond. The Con- 
federate troops lacked food and supplies of all kinds. 
The railroads were not repaired, the plantations were 
neglected, the money was worthless, desertions from the 
arm}' were common, and the prisons were tilled with 
Union soldiers. 



IO4 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

LIX. THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 

On Sunday, April 2, 1865, all was in confusion in the 
city. President Davis was at church when he received 
news of Grant's attack. He at once left the service, 
called a cabinet meeting, and decided that all the govern- 
ment archives should be taken out of the city. The 
State legislature and city council also met and took 
measures for departure. The arsenal and war vessels 
were now destroyed by tremendous explosions, and large 
stores of cotton and tobacco were set on fire to prevent 
capture by the enemy. All the liquor was ordered de- 
stroved, but a mob gave free rein to disorder and crime. 
A desperate band of convicts set fire to the State prison, 
and in their striped clothes went yelling and leaping 
through the streets. One Lumkin had in his slave- 
trader's jail some fifty slaves — men, women and chil- 
dren. These he chained together and got ready to leave 
the city. 

On Monday order was restored. A colored regiment, 
under the command of a grandson of John Quincy 
Adams, entered the city. They were regarded with 
perfect horror by the white people, and met with trans- 
ports of delight by the colored population. The black 
soldiers, in their bright uniforms, rose in their stirrups 
and waved their swords to greet the cheers of their 
colored brethren. 

LX. LINCOLN IN RICHMOND. 

On Tuesday Lincoln entered Richmond. Accom- 
panied by his son Tad and a small guard, and led by a 
colored man as a guide, he walked a mile and a half to 
the main part of the city. Crowds of colored people 



THE ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN. 105 

looked with wonder, joy and reverence on the man 
of whom they had heard so much. One white-haired 
negro wearing a crownless hat, without a coat, and in 
tattered clothes, half knelt before the President and said, 
" May de good Lord bless and keep you safe, Mars 
Linkum." Lincoln raised his hat and his eyes filled with 
tears. 

LXI. LEE'S SURRENDER: APRIL 9, 1865. 

On April 3, 1865, Lee evacuated Richmond. It was 
a beautiful spring morning. Flowers grew by the way- 
side. Many peach trees along the way were in bloom. 
The air was pure and clear, and the pale green leaves 
gave a delicate color and charm to the landscape. 

Grant pushed his troops after the retreating Confed- 
erates. Sheridan, by rapid marching, got directly in 
front of Lee's line of retreat. On April 9 Lee sur- 
rendered his whole army at Appomattox Court House, 
and the war was ended. 

LXII. ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN. 

On the President's return to Washington he attended 
Ford's theatre on the evening of April 14, 1865. John 
Wilkes Booth, an actor, ambitious for fame, noiselessly 
opened the door at the rear of the box where Lincoln 
sat. He had a dagger in one hand and a pistol in the 
other. He sent a bullet through Lincoln's brain, jumped 
from the box to the stage, cried to the audience " Sic 
Semper Tyrannis," ran quickly across the stage, escaped 
through a rear door, mounted a horse in readiness, and 
fled in the darkness from the city. 

The assassin had done sure work. Lincoln moved 



I06 FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

but slightly. His eyes closed, his head drooped forward, 
and he became unconscious. He was at once taken 
across the street to a room, and physicians were sum- 
moned. Members of the Cabinet watched at the bed- 
side during the night. Senator Sumner was there, his 
great frame shaken by sobs. Lincoln died the next 
morning a little after seven. 

Funeral services were held in the East Room of the 
White House, and then the cortege began its long jour- 
ney over the same route taken by Lincoln on his way to 
Washington four years before. As the funeral car 
moved along Pennsylvania avenue, it was preceded by a 
detachment of colored soldiers and followed by the min- 
isters of foreign nations, judges of the Supreme Court, 
members of Congress and chief officers of the govern- 
ment. Bells tolled and minute guns sounded from the 
distant fortifications. The body lay in state for two days 
in the rotunda of the Capitol. The tall columns and 
massive dome were draped in black. At Philadelphia 
a great concourse in Independence Hall looked on the 
face of the man who, four years before, in that place, 
had said, " Sooner than surrender these principles I 
would be assassinated on this spot." An immense mul- 
titude saw the remains in the City Hall of New York. 
In that city a solemn funeral hymn was rendered at mid- 
night by German musical societies. As the funeral train 
went along the Hudson, dirges and hymns were sung 
and crowds stood uncovered as the body was borne to 
its distant resting place. While he lay in state in the 
Capitol at Albany, his assassin stood at bay in a burn- 
ing barn and was shot by a Union soldier. The long 
journey westward was one continued tribute of grief 
and affection. At the grave his second inaugural ad- 



TWO FORCES. IO7 

dress was read, and its closing words marked well the 
trend of his life and character: "With malice toward 
none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as 
God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish 
the work we are in." 

LXIII. THE GRAND REVIEW. 

In May the armies under Grant and Sherman were 
assembled in Washington for a final and grand review. 
A large reviewing stand, finely decorated with flowers, 
evergreens and flags, was erected near the White House, 
and on this President Johnson, General Grant, the mem- 
bers of the Cabinet and other distinguished men assem- 
bled to honor the two great armies of the Union. For 
days before, every train had brought crowds of people 
into the city, and on the morning of the review Pennsyl- 
vania avenue, on both sides, was lined with a dense mass 
of humanity from the Capitol to the White House. An 
hour before the troops began to march, the school chil- 
dren of the city, bearing flowers for the soldiers, took 
position at the Capitol. For two days the great host, 
forming a column thirty miles in length, marched along 
the historic avenue. It was a great army that knew 
what war meant, and that had faced death on many 
battlefields. Their uniforms were worn and torn by 
hard service. Many flags had been cut into shreds by 
shot and shell. Memories of the fallen arose from the 
stern pageant as the great army began its last march for 
distant homes and friends. 

LXIV. TWO FORCES. 

From the voyage of the Treasurer to the fall of Fort 
Sumter the institution of slavery was a positive and ag- 



IOS FREEDOM AND SLAVERY. 

gressive force in the industrial, social and political life of 
the South. For two and a half centuries it had spread 
over a vast and fertile country. It had built up fifteen 
slave States, embracing an area of 700,000 square miles. 
The slave was called " the mud-sill " of society, and 
slavery was termed " a good — a positive good." Above 
this submerged mass appeared the courtesy and refine- 
ment of the white aristocracy. Slavery was protected 
in every department of local, State and national govern- 
ment. Nothing but a sweeping revolution from within 
or a gigantic attack from without could destroy an in- 
stitution so interwoven with the structure of society. 

From the voyage of the Mayflower to the election of 
Abraham Lincoln freedom was a constant power in the 
industrial, social and political life of the North. During 
two and a half centuries that power had been extended 
from Plymouth Rock to the Golden Gate of California. 
Free labor was the foundation of Northern industry and 
progress. Millions of European immigrants poured 
fresh blood into the veins of the North. Manufactures 
multiplied, commerce on the Great Lakes enormously in- 
creased, and uniting the North was a great railway sys- 
tem, over which were whirled the myriad products of 
industry. 

The civil war brought these opposing forces together, 
and freedom triumphed over slavery. It was a victory 
of civilization over a relic of barbarism. It enlarged the 
ever-widening empire of freedom and justice. 



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